Gravel's campaign is based primarily on his ardent support for The National Initiative

[Flabbergasted]

The Concept of the National Initiative

The central power of government in a democracy is lawmaking –– not voting. He who makes the rules controls the game. Laws determine if, when, how and which citizens can vote. Governments throughout history have been tools of oppression; they need not be. Ordinary American citizens can gain control of their government by becoming lawmakers, stemming government growth and turning it to public benefit.

Are the people qualified to be lawmakers? Well, they’re qualified enough to give their power away on Election Day to manipulating politicians who say almost anything to get elected. It’s easier to make decisions affecting one’s self-interests (after consulting with knowledgeable sources, if one chooses) than it is to select representatives (agents) bent on power. One hopes these representatives have knowledge of the issues and the integrity to place their constituents’ interests above their own. That’s a tall order for human nature.

AMERICA DOES NOT HAVE A
GOVERNMENT "BY THE PEOPLE"

The United States of America is not, in fact, a democracy. In a democracy, the people are the government. Today, we elect people to run the government for us. The people we elect do not, for the most part, run the country in the interest of the people, they run it in the interest of themselves. We are led to believe that we must put our trust in these people. We, the people, do not have the power to create laws in our interest. This leads to an extreme imbalance of power in the government versus the people.

To solve these problems and create a true balance of power, The Democracy Foundation has created a plan named the National Initiative for Democracy.

The powerful elites who control our government will self-servingly argue that the People are not qualified or do not know enough to be trusted to make laws. To counter those opposed to empowering the People, one needs only look to the record of the last 100 years in the 24 states where the People make laws by initiative. In those states the People have legislated responsibly, and many times more so than their elected representatives. Civil service, campaign finance reform, and women's right to vote are but a few examples of the progressive legislation initiated by the People.

The experience of Switzerland is even more instructive. Switzerland, a poor, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, hardscrabble country without natural resources, decided, 140 years ago, to adopt a constitution that brought the People into the operation of government as lawmakers. Even the acclaimed Alexis de Tocqueville had serious doubts that this Swiss experiment in direct democracy would work. The result is without precedent in human history; Switzerland has evolved into the most successfully governed and wealthiest nation in the world.

The National Initiative has been developed and refined over the past decade by former Senator Mike Gravel (D. Alaska, 1969 - 1981) and his colleagues. The Democracy Foundation, a nonprofit 501 c 3 organization, is sponsoring the National Initiative. Philadelphia II, a separate nonprofit organization, is conducting an election on National Initiative at votep2.us, giving the people the opportunity to vote for and enact the National Initiative into law. Both are organizations are led by Senator Gravel.