In a year focused on abortion rights, Iowa’s proposed constitutional amendments are boring — but solid

Given recent court decisions, it’s no surprise that the Iowa Legislature, given its pro-life Republican majority, is not interested in codifying the right to an abortion (or the prohibition thereof) in the state constitution.

Nevertheless, there are two proposed amendments to the Constitution of the State of Iowa on the general election ballot this year, addressing a person’s eligibility to vote and the gubernatorial line of succession.

The former codifies the legal voting age as 18 years by the date of the general election. (Believe it or not, our state constitution still lists that as the outdated 21 years.) It also specifies that only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote in Iowa elections.

The latter more or less states that if a sitting Iowa governor resigns, kicks the bucket or is ousted before their term is up, the lieutenant governor becomes governor and can appoint their replacement to the lieutenant governorship.

As far as controversy goes, the voting eligibility amendment has made only small waves with a few who question the firmer wording about citizenship. Granted, it may attract more interest in the wake of recent reports from Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, who announced last week that an audit had uncovered a number of instances of noncitizens voting and/or registering to vote — even after self-reporting their status as noncitizens.

The gubernatorial succession amendment has not stoked voters’ passions. I have heard exactly one opinion registered each for and against. The lone person who stated their opposition did so having a wildly incorrect understanding of the current line of succession. The lone person who encouraged support gently asked delegates at the GOP state convention in May to affirm the change and clarify the order of succession.

Perhaps not ironically, that mild-mannered request came from then-Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg, who resigned from office several months after the convention to take a private-sector job and spend more time with his family — and who sent me a handwritten get-well card after I had emergency abdominal surgery eight years ago. Adam Gregg is a good dude. Call that a “gut feeling.”

It’s in 10 other states that voters will decide if and how to codify the right to an abortion (or specify its nonexistence) in their constitutions. Eight of those proposed amendments are citizen-initiated, meaning proponents gathered the requisite number of residents’ signatures to place the amendment onto the ballot without legislative action.

Iowa is one of a majority of states that require constitutional amendments originate from the Legislature. We go even further, in fact, and require that legislators approve them in back-to-back assemblies: Pass a bill in the legislature, have a general election, pass the same bill in the next legislature, have another election and put the amendment on the ballot. It takes two and a half years at the very minimum, and as long as the state constitution is the supreme law of the state of Iowa, that’s how it should be.

Iowa also does not allow any statewide measures to enact changes to Iowa Code. Only in political subdivisions such as counties or school districts may voters put a measure on the ballot to approve and enact.

But the uncomfortable truth is that voters are rarely, if ever, capable of making good laws on their own.

I’ll start with a local example. In 2016, a group led by a resident of Coggon collected enough signatures to petition for a public measure to reduce the number of county supervisors in Linn County from five to three in large part over dissatisfaction with the supervisors’ salaries, which topped six figures beginning in 2015.

Kevin Kula’s group collected the minimum 8,695 signatures it needed — equal to 10 percent of the turnout in the previous general election, per state law — by placing organizers right outside the Jean Oxley Public Service Center in Cedar Rapids, catching many residents just after they left the Treasurer’s office having just paid their property taxes. Clever.

After the measure was approved by Linn County voters, the group collected even more signatures — over 12,800 — calling for a special election to determine the method of electing the three members of the newly-reduced Board of Supervisors. A special election was held Aug. 1, 2017. Only 9,350 voters cast a ballot.

That’s right — more people signed the petition to force a special election to decide how the new Board of Supervisors would be elected than actually participated in that election. But let’s face it — scribbling one’s signature on a clipboard thrust in front of them while walking from their car to the building requires scant effort and even less thought.

That scant effort on the part of Linn County voters saved taxpayers some money with two fewer six-figure salaries, sure. But it starkened the urban/rural divide and isolated the supervisors from each other outside of formal proceedings or public work sessions — with only two members constituting a minority, supervisors can’t have even casual conversations about county business outside official meetings without violating open meeting laws.

When applying that low standard of effort to “citizen-led initiatives” designed to enact new state laws, veto existing ones or amend the state constitution, some of the most consequential changes to the laws that govern the people of a state begin with the most passive and nonchalant of actions.

“All you have to do is sign a form,” says Tom Babbage, a Marion native who now resides in Arizona where citizen-led ballot initiatives are permitted. “Come April … you can’t even make it from your car to the store without running into several people wanting to get your signature.”

Those citizens asking for signatures from qualified electors may or may not be volunteers. Just like any political party or candidate can, citizen groups can raise and spend money to hire organizers and rally support. The person asking for signatures on a clipboard in the parking lot of the grocery store could be a local activist passionate about the issue they’re promoting. Or they could be paid by a group raising money from out of state.

One of the proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot in Arizona this year is Proposition 140, a citizen-led initiative that would transform the state’s primary election process to a California-style “jungle primary” and also allow for ranked choice voting. In less than 90 days, a political action committee supporting the initiative raised just shy of $3 million. Contributions to the effort included $20,000 from a lifelong resident of northern California and $150,000 from the Unite America PAC in Denver, CO.

As a constitutional amendment, Proposition 140 required signatures from 15% of Arizona’s 2022 general election turnout to be placed on the ballot. Signers don’t have to be active voters or even registered voters, however — they only have to be “qualified electors,” i.e. someone who is simply eligible to vote.

So the very step that elevates an idea to the ballot could be significantly influenced or even determined outright by residents who scrawl their name on a form put in front of them in a store parking lot — and nothing else.

In late July, Babbage sent me a message the night before the Arizona primary elections.

“In November we will have 3 pages of ballot referendums,” he wrote. “22 different amendments.” My jaw dropped as I pictured myself handing a ballot like that to a voter.

Unfortunately, the money behind citizen-led ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments can reach the same levels of obscenity as campaigns for elected office and come from the same corporate behemoths whose electoral influence grassroots activists supposedly loathe.

In 2020, California voters approved Proposition 22, exempting app-based transportation and delivery companies like Uber and DoorDash from the state’s destructive new anti-freelancing law that forced companies to choose between hiring their independent contractors as permanent employees against their wishes or cease contracting with them.

The passage of Prop 22 was a win for California freelancers who value the flexibility of independent contracting. But that win came at a cost of $205 million spent by companies like Uber and Lyft to turn out voters in the hopes of saving their business model from ruin.

When huge sums of money and influence are the driving force behind them, citizen-led initiatives can easily fail to distinguish themselves from the ugliness of electoral and legislative politics.

They’re arguably worse, as a matter of fact, for they’re done in relative haste.

In Iowa, the most divisive bill loathed by the legislative minority still has to be discussed and debated. The most controversial amendments to our state constitution still have to follow longer, more detailed steps than standard legislation.

But bypassing lawmakers to make huge changes to law — or alter its very foundation — through ballot measures? That doesn’t require debate or discussion. It can be achieved through a majority that fills in the oval without giving it a moment of thought.

On one hand, I understand the appeal of citizen-led initiatives. Citizens and interest groups who have goals to achieve will attempt to do so through whatever means are available. That’s true in every state and every political subdivision including Iowa, regardless of who — or which party — is in charge.

But hasty changes, exciting though they may be — can wreak their own form of political havoc. When that happens, slow and boring constitutional processes like ours start looking pretty good.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com