Allen, 2002, p. 14 wrote:
Is a single “legislature of the people” being enacted or thousands of them encompassing every political subdivision within the United States? What is a “governmental jurisdiction”? Can the individual boroughs of New York City pass initiatives inconsistent with that of the population of the City itself? Why not?

Tolbert, 2002, p. 5 wrote:
Rather than proposing a national referendum process as currently exists in most advanced industrialized nations, the Democracy Act creates an initiative process in “every jurisdiction of the United States.” The Act would not only create an initiative process in the remaining twenty-six states without the process, but in every county, city, and municipality of the United States. The twenty-four initiative states, would have two initiative processes, but since the Democracy Act takes precedent over local, state and federal law when the two are in conflict, sponsors would be unlikely to rely on existing state initiative processes. This is unfortunate, as many observers argue state provisions for direct democracy have functioned effectively for nearly a century. Creating an initiative process at the local and state level also raises significant constitutional issues regarding federalism and home rule of local governments.

Focus the Act exclusively on the creation of a federal initiative process, leaving the states, localities and municipalities to draft and adopt their own legislation. Most scholars and practitioners see the referendum as a necessary intermediary stage between no direct democracy (what we have at the federal level) and the initiative process. The initiative and referendum go hand and hand at the state level, and in many localities. I would suggest adding a federal referendum to the Democracy Act.

It may be prudent to start with referendum in a country where there has been no direct democracy. However, the United States has more than 100 years of experience with direct democracy at the state level. Oregon has offered initiatives since 1902. Separate referendum procedures can be added as an initiative, or the initiative process can be used to implement ad hoc referendum.

There are a number of reasons why NI4D takes an all jurisdiction approach:

• Suffrage

  When women got the right to vote, they got it in all jurisdictions via a federal constitutional amendment. Citizen initiative is of the same importance as the right to vote because what is the use of suffrage if you cannot vote on the issues which affect your life? Imagine if women had won the right to vote at the federal level only and that some states still did not permit women to vote at the state or local levels. That would be strange, wouldn't it?

• Opportunity cost

  Enacting citizen initiative at the federal level in any form is an enormous challenge. If the People are going to go to the trouble of amending the constitution, why not add direct democracy in all jurisdictions?

• Initiative procedure reform

  The states which have initiative procedures have outdated procedures with well studied flaws (e.g., California). NI4D includes a deliberative component (see Act, 3-I) which addresses poor drafting and a polling option for qualification (see Act, 3-F-2) which reduces the cost of qualification contingent on broad public support. By adding direct democracy to all jurisdictions, citizens will gain the option of proposing initiatives to change state law under the superior NI4D procedures.

• People want it

  Almost all opinion polls suggest that the People want the power of initiative.

• More orderly lawmaking

  Suppose citizen initiative is available only at the federal level. There is such great demand for initiative that you will likely end up with many federal statutes for issues which should be dealt with at the state or local level. For example, in both Switzerland and California, there are procedural advantages for initiatives which modify the constitution in comparison to statute law. This has resulted in constitutions overburdened with provisions which are really of a statutory nature. A uniform implementation of direct democracy would permit state law to be implemented by state initiative and federal law to be implemented by federal initiative.

A Preamble is a legislative device to state the reasons for an act, what the act does, and concludes "therefore" with the action. In this instance, the Preamble asserts the right of the People to make laws using the initiative as their chosen legislative device. It also sanctions the election process conducted by Philadelphia II and points out that the "Legislature of the People" will legislate concurrently with the legislative bodies of the various levels of government. The underlying principle expressed in the Preamble is that all political power is inherent in and flows from the People who comprise a society. The People may choose to ordain the creation of a government as they did in ratifying the Constitution and therein delegating the legislative power of government to representatives in Congress. This did not in the slightest impair the People's sovereign power to then take unto themselves the legislative power to make laws. [This commentary refers to the direct election version of the act. -- Editor]