for the same purpose, shall be subject to rejection or repeal under this section. The increase in any such appropriation shall only take effect as in case of other laws, and such increase, or any part thereof, specified in the petition may be referred to a vote of the people upon petition."
The criticism is made that the Wisconsin proposal is no initiative at all; that if the legislator does not wish to introduce the bill he will not do so. The first answer to this objection is that it would be an exceedingly poor bill whose author could not find, among a hundred and thirty-three legislators, one who would be willing to introduce it. Again, if a petition containing four or five thousand signatures or the number which is required under the Oregon petition demanding a bill is submitted, it is practically impossible to keep it out of the legislature. The petition may be used if necessary in getting some member to introduce the bill. No strength of the Oregon scheme is lost here. The orderly proceeding in the legislature is retained, and in addition there is an elasticity which is not found in the Oregon law. The petitioners who have secured a legislator willing to father the bill have at their command, through this legislator, the services of the legislative reference department, with its skilled draftsmen, who will aid them in the technical construction of the bill to be introduced.
Nearly all initiative and referendum plans provide that the legislature may send a competing bill to the
