A certain mass transit enthusiast was back in court last week, trying yet again to convince a judge that his light-rail petition should go before voters. Kansas City yawned.</p><p> Just because Clay Chastain is an irritant of nearly a quarter-century&#x92;s standing, though, doesn&#x92;t mean we should ignore what he shows us, which is that Kansas City&#x92;s initiative petition process is largely a fraud that should be fixed or discarded.</p><p> The ability of citizens to enact legislation by petition &#x97; bypassing elected officials &#x97; became popular at the turn of the 20th century. Social activists, frustrated that office-holders could bottle up progressive initiatives, persuaded states and eventually cities to allow voters a chance to enact their own laws by petition.</p><p> Kansas City&#x92;s process mocks that ideal. Although the city&#x92;s charter allows citizens to put a measure on the ballot, it also allows the City Council to change or repeal voter-approved initiatives. And now, the city argues, the charter permits the council to stop measures it doesn&#x92;t find legally acceptable from ever getting to the ballot.</p><p> In Kansas City, you need the City Council&#x92;s approval to bypass the City Council.</p><p> This silliness is easily fixed. On the back end, the council&#x92;s right to reject a petition-approved law makes sense as a check on voters&#x92; power, but rejecting a law should require nine of 13 votes. Under current law, throwing out a petition ordinance a year after it passes takes a simple majority.</p><p>And there should be a procedure on the front end for a city department to validate a petition&#x92;s legality <span class="italic">before</span> signatures are gathered &#x97; roughly the procedure the state already uses. The review could allow quick intervention by a judge if the city holds up approval.</p><p> In return, petitioners should be required to get more signatures to put something on the ballot. Today the threshold is just 5 percent of the votes in the last mayoral election, about 3,500 signatures; instead, it should be 5 percent of <span class="italic">registered</span> voters, roughly 17,000 valid Kansas City signatures gathered over a set time frame of perhaps six months.</p><p> If someone can get that many valid signatures on a technically approved petition, it should go on the next ballot automatically, without council or judicial oversight.</p><p> This may seem like a lot of fuss. But embedding the fiction of a fair petition process in the city&#x92;s charter can lead to immense skepticism over how open the system really is.</p><p> That&#x92;s a bigger problem than another petition from the well-known Clay Chastain.</p><p> The other solution is to drop the initiative process altogether. That would hurt democracy, perhaps, but it would end the charade that voters can truly enact laws without council interference.