What is being advocated by Senator Gross is hardly unique. Political insiders in other states also advocate regulating voter initiatives in order to make it nearly impossible for voters to successfully check their wayward political servants. The message seems clear: Don’t let the people vote.

If the voters are so uninformed on issues that affect them, one wonders how they are deemed smart enough to know which blow-dried candidate is lying. (Answer? Both.)

Raising the bar to make citizen initiatives more difficult impacts the powerful groups the least. They can spend to overcome such hurdles. It’s the grassroots groups that get cut out.

And that’s no accident.

With so much of politics locked up by powerful career politicians and special interests, the voter initiative process is the one area they just can’t quite control. Voters are liable to think up all manners of reforms — from term limits to state spending caps. And no matter how much special interests spend, voters manage to enact critical reforms.

With government as big as Goliath, the initiative hands David a slingshot.

So, every year, as legislatures come back into session and lobbyists and politicians renew their conversations, we see efforts to gut the voter initiative process.

Perhaps we always will. There is a divide between those who seek to rule, in the name of the people, and those who wish to see the people rule, at least within the strict limits of the Constitution.

Thomas Jefferson noticed this long ago:

Men by their makeup are naturally divided into two camps: those who fear and distrust the people and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of higher classes; and those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them the safest and most honest, if not always the wisest repository of the public interest. These two camps exist in every country, and wherever men are free to think, speak, and write, they will identify themselves.

Hats off to you, Mr. Gross, for your clarity in this argument.