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At approximately 6:30 pm this evening my home phone rang, displaying “Out Of State,” on the caller ID.

Following the customary mating dance of the telephone solicitor -

(RESPONDENT) “Hello?”

(long pause, then CALLER, desperately) “HELLO??”

(RESPONDENT, sighing) “Hello…”

- a woman speaking at great speed indicated she sought responses for a “political opinion poll.”

At my request, the caller named Venture Data of Salt Lake City as the firm conducting the research.

The company’s Web site offers its arguably blasé policy against politically manipulative, agenda-financed “push polling” (”We recognize that in the heat of highly charged election campaigns tempers will flare and accusations of impropriety are likely to fly”), but it was clear from the questions that former Harvard Pilgrim CEO Charlie Baker is sounding out his electorate in Cambridge  (and, I hope for his sake, probably elsewhere too), as he prepares to decide if he really wants to blow SO MUCH money on his hypothetical 2010 campaign to become the next Republican governor of the Commonwealth.

Beginning with questions to determine my age, party affiliation, assessment of Governor Patrick’s performance to date, and that I was not employed in newspaper or radio media (God forbid!), the caller read an excessively worded introduction to Charlie Baker’s career in business, his political appointment under former Governor Weld, and even where he went to college (Northwestern).

Several questions followed regarding my view of the State Legislature, its overwhelmingly Democratic character, and its ability or inability to “get things done.”

The caller then repeatedly queried whether I might support “reforms to amend the legislative process” so that legislative initiatives beginning as petitions could be adopted subject to a direct vote by the people of Massachusetts, “with no interference from the State Legislature.”

Upon pressing, the caller stated that in the past 100 years, only three legislative initiatives beginning as petitions had succeeded in making the ballot for a popular vote. The statement seemed to me less than factual and I said so before finishing the survey.

The University of Southern California’s Initiative and Referendum Institute (IRI) seems to confirm the poll’s fuzzy numbers here.

In fact, according to the IRI, more than three initiatives have actually been approved by Commonwealth voters since 1918, “including a 1920 measure defining cider and beer as non-intoxicating liquors,” thusly, and, to the Boston mind, justly exempting them from Prohibition. Other successful early initiatives included measures to end the ban on Sunday sports events (1928), repeal the state’s Prohibition law (1930), reform candidate nominating procedures (1932), and regulate animal trapping (1930).

Proposition 2 and 1/2 was also approved in 1964 as a ballot initiative .

The technical difference between a legislative initiative and a referendum? An initiative begins as a petition to create a new statute or law, whereas as a referendum starts as a petition to amend an existing law.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 5:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Massachusetts, politics, Charlie Baker, Venture Data. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.