February 16, 2007
Your Help Needed- SuperQuick Survey
Hi, Sound-Politics Bloggers:
I'm a law student, and I'm conducting a super-quick yes/no survey of WA State residents about their understanding and feelings about how laws are made, for an academic paper I'm working on. You may follow this link to it:
http://www.exordia.net/survey1/
Your answer will help me to parse out public perceptions across demographics and interests. Your answer is valued whether you are highly political or not--in fact, especially if you're not.
The survey is anonymous. Please answer--pretty please. Please answer only once. Feel free to forward to other WA residents.
Thank you in advance. :-) -OctoberLeaf
Posted by OctoberLeaf at February 16, 2007
03:00 PM | Email This
1. Just for all the skeptics, the sites fine.
2. I'll second Andrew's comment. Easy stuff. I'd be interested in seeing the published study.
3. My one comment on the Legislative vs. Initiative route that I was unable to contribute through the survey. I think there is a difference in the quality of laws passed by each route. Legislators, serving constituencies and special interests, tend to pass things by increments. Many "reform packages" and other laws passed out of the legislature usually lack teeth (see e.g., 2005 election reforms, the 2005 Performance Audits, etc.), especially at the start. On the other hand, a citizen initiative tends to take a bigger bite (see Performance Audit Initiative and just about anything by Tim Eyman), and is often perceived as too radical or extreme.
4. Notagreener, I see your point. But there is a great difference between the legislature and the grassroots initiative: The initiative writers tend to rely on the intelligence of the voter, while the legislature pins its hopes on the stupidity of the voter.
5. Thank you for your comment(s)! Lot's of folks didn't want to stay within the yes/no boundaries on this one, so I'll probably do a section on them.
I'll post a link to the paper on this listserve for those who want to take a look. Pax. -cw