Its members have little or no initiative and little or no independence.

Legislative projects are imposed upon them either by party leaders, by special interests, or at times by the executive and public opinion.

Their work is at best that of committee-men and at worst that of mercenaries, paid to betray their original employers.

A successful attempt to bestow upon legislative bodies, composed of such doubtful material and subject to such equivocal traditions anything resembling complete governmental responsibility, would be a dangerous business.

Legislatures have degenerated into the condition of being merely agents, rather than principals in the work of government; and the strength and the propriety of the contemporary movement in favor of the initiative and the referendum is to be attributed to this condition.
The increasing introduction of the referendum into the local political organization is partly a recognition of the fact that the legislatures have ceased to play an independent part in the work of government.