The following year the People’s Party, wherever it was in power, endeavored to submit to the people a constitutional amendment for the initiative and referendum, but as a two-thirds vote was required there was a temporary failure.
In 1896 the People’s Party at its national convention came out strongly for the initiative and referendum, as also did the National Party convention, composed of 299 delegates who seceded from the Prohibition convention. The Socialist Labor Party also reaffirmed its people’s sovereignty plank of 1892.
The first legislation in this country for the initiative and referendum was by the People’s Party in Nebraska, 1897. The voters in municipalities were empowered to petition for the adoption of the initiative and referendum system for local affairs, and the system was to be adopted if approved by a majority of those who should vote upon the question. Hon. John W. Yeiser was chiefly instrumental in securing the law, and he endeavored to secure its adoption in Omaha, but without success.
The same year, 1897, the People’s Party representatives in the South Dakota Legislature combined with the Silver Republicans and Democrats to submit a constitutional amendment for the initiative and referendum. Most of the Republicans in the Legislature fell in line and voted with the promoters of the reform. At the next election, 1898, the voters adopted the system. Afterward the Republican party, which then had a majority in each house, enacted the statute to put it in operation. Since then two sessions of the Legislature have been held and the effects of the referendum (the people’s veto) have been splendid. The following words are credited to the Republican Governor, Hon. Charles Herried, by a member of the Toronto Parliament:
“Since this referendum law has been a part of our constitution we have had no chartermongers or railway speculators, no wildcat schemes submitted to our Legislature. Formerly our time was occupied by speculative schemes of one kind or another, but since the referendum has been a part of the constitution these people do not press their schemes on the Legislature, and hence there is no necessity for having recourse to the referendum.”
The initiative in South Dakota was crippled by inserting a “joker”! The system provides that five per cent. of the voters may propose bills to the Legislature, “which measures the Legislature shall enact and submit to a vote of the electors of the state.”
The year (1898) that the voters of South Dakota balloted upon the question of adopting the improved system of representative government, the People’s Party, Silver Republicans and Democrats in Utah submitted to the voters of the state the question of adopting a constitutional amendment for the referendum and initiative. At the next election the voters adopted the system; but the Republican party gained control of the Legislature and refused to enact a statute for putting the constitutional amendment into operation. Two years later the same thing occurred.
The same year that the Fusionist Legislature in Utah submitted the amendment a similar thing was done by a Republican legislature in Oregon. A proposal for an amendment in Oregon has to pass two successive legislatures; therefore the question was a live issue in the next campaign—1900. The People’s Party, the Democratic and the Republican state platforms each pledged that, should the party be placed in power in the Legislature, it would permit the voters to ballot upon the question. The Republican party secured a majority in the Legislature and submitted the question. In the next campaign, 1902, the question was again a live issue, for it was to be balloted upon by the voters; and again all the parties declared for the improved system and advised the voters of the state to adopt it, as also did the Granges and Organized Labor, likewise both the United States senators and the Republican governor, and nearly all the prominent men in political life in Oregon, together with most of the newspapers in the state. All advised the adoption of the system, and the vote of the people was 11 to 1 for the system.
Governor Geer’s advice to the voter was: “If the referendum amendment is adopted by the people and made use of after adoption, it will be helpful all around as a restraining influence over careless legislatures. Even if not often brought into requisition, the fact that it is a part of the state Constitution, ready to be used as a check against ill-advised legislation at any time, will justify its adoption. It may not be needed now any more than it was 100 years ago, but there have often been times in the past when even ‘Our Fathers’ could have been wisely checked by this wholesome reservation of the rights of the people.”
In Nevada, at the legislative session of 1901, the Fusionist party had a majority in the Legislature and voted to submit to the people the question of adopting the referendum. The next Legislature gave its consent and submitted a constitutional amendment for the initiative. At the following election the voters adopted the referendum, but the Legislature elected was Republican and it refused to consent to the submission of the constitutional amendment for the initiative.