Taking the politics out of title and summary

Joe Mathews is right: the way California lets politicians, whether the attorney general or the Legislature, put their thumbs on the scale by writing cagey or misleading titles and summaries for ballot measures invites dishonesty and abuse, as with Proposition 1A on the May special election ballot.The state needs an independent ballot title process carried out, as he says, by non-politicians.

Here’s how it might work:

When a measure for the ballot is submitted to the state, the secretary of state would ask the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) to prepare a list of up to ten multiple-choice questions about its major provisions and effects.

She would then send a staff member to a randomly selected place in the state. The staffer would offer $1,000 apiece to the first three registered voters he meets on the street if they would agree to sit together and write the title and summary of the measure. They would have one hour to read the measure and write a title and summary. All three would have to agree on the wording. If they could not perform that task by consensus, the measure would be returned to the proponent for rewriting.

Once the panel of non-politicians had produced the title and summary, the secretary of state would send a staff member to another randomly selected place in the state. The staffer would offer $1,000 apiece to the first three registered voters he meets on the street if they would agree to read the title and summary and then answer the questions prepared by the LAO. If all three correctly answer 80 percent of the questions, the measure would go onto the ballot; otherwise it would be returned to the proponent.

The result? Politically independent titles and summaries. Only ballot measures voters actually understand. And even an opportunity to make some money for the state, by selling the rights to film those titling sessions to a reality TV producer: “Watch ordinary people struggle to make sense out of confusion in an exotic locale! Tonight, on Survivor: California.”