ABSTRACT
An issue-based campaign is anything that goes before the voters other than a candidate. Issue-based campaigns can cover money measures for publicly owned buildings, infrastructure—like water systems or wastewater—parkland acquisition, air-quality regulations, and various taxes, like a gas tax to fix roads. Issue-based campaigns can come to the ballot either through a government body placing it on the ballot or through an initiative process. The initiative and referendum process arose out of the fundamental controversy about whether government should come directly from the people or through representatives to the various levels of government. The survival rate of competing measures is complicated when state wide initiative-driven legislation is placed on the ballot and inflames one group over another, such as legislation dealing with gun control, reproductive rights, or sexual orientation. State legislatures love to preempt local government; as moneyed interests have discovered, fighting targeted taxation and legislation is much easier in a state capital than in a hundred municipalities.
