By Sameea Kamal

What can be an initiative? Anything that’s the “proper subject of legislation” – as long as it only addresses one subject.

To get an initiative or referendum on the ballot, there are a few steps that can begin more than a year before the election.

• An idea is proposed by citizens to the state attorney general’s office with a $2,000 fee, or a bill is passed by the Legislature.
• A title and summary are written by the attorney general.

In California, unlike in some other states, the ballot title and summary are not drafted by the secretary of state or an elections board. The language is meant to be neutral, but former attorneys general Xavier Becerra and Kamala Harris, and current Attorney General Rob Bonta, have been accused of not always staying impartial. 

For example, a parents’ rights group sued over the title of its proposed initiative to require schools to notify parents if their child identifies as transgender, to ban female transgender students from girls’ athletic teams and to prohibit children from medically transitioning. Bonta labeled it as “Restricts Rights of Transgender Youth” and a judge upheld his description. Subsequently, proponents failed to gather enough signatures to qualify their initiative.  

(A proposed initiative to transfer the drafting authority to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office failed to qualify for the 2022 ballot. And a bill this year to do the same also failed.)

• Signatures are gathered.
  The number of signatures required is based on a percentage of total votes in the last gubernatorial election. 

• Lawmakers are alerted, after which they may hold public hearings.
  The Legislature is not allowed to amend the measure or prevent it from appearing on the ballot, but a 2014 law allows more room for compromise for proponents to withdraw qualified measures from the ballot.
  
• Collected signatures are verified by the Secretary of State’s office.
  This is done in two ways, once measure proponents file at least 100% of the required signatures to qualify. Under the random sample method, each county elections office is required to verify at least 500 signatures or 3% of the number of signatures filed in their office, whichever is greater. If the completed sample shows that the number of valid signatures is projected to be more than 110% of the required signatures, the measure qualifies. If it’s less than 95%, the measure fails to qualify.
  
  If the number of valid signatures in the random sample represents between 95% and 110% of the required total, then the full check method requires election officials to verify every signature on the petition filed with their office.
  
  Campaigns pay anywhere from $2 to $6 per signature to petition gatherers, depending on how well-funded the campaign is, and how close they are to the required number of signatures and the deadline. Over the last two years, due to COVID-19 safety measures and the labor shortage, the price per signature could rise to as much as $15, some strategists told the Los Angeles Times.

A statewide ballot measure is approved by a simple majority vote of the people.