The PIRGs have been a leading practitioner of the citizens initiative process to pass environmental, consumer protection, and good government measures. We will continue to use the process and will work to promote and defend the process itself.

Having this electoral ability [the initiative and referendum process] is a critical 'safety valve' for effective citizenship.

We are cleaning house and in order to clean house the one thing we need is a good broom. Initiative and referendum are good brooms.

If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs.

There is nothing more sacred to a free people than the right to govern themselves and take matters into their own hands when their elected officials have failed them. When the very government which the people have created to secure their liberty and domestic tranquility imposes restraints on their freedom, the people have a duty to try to break the shackles themselves.

"One big difference between initiatives and elected representatives is that initiatives do not change their minds once you vote them in.

Initiative and Referendum is the citizen activist's 'ace in the hole'

"The will of the majority, the natural law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of man. Perhaps even this may sometimes err; but its errors are honest, solitary and short-lived."

"Those states that have the initiative and referendum process have tended to have less scandals and more honest state government than those states without that process."