For much of his career as a citizen activist, Paul Jacob was closely associated with the cause of term limits, a subject that still comes up now and again on his daily Common Sense radio show-and-email. But as founder and president of Citizens in Charge, for the past several years Paul has primarily focussed on defending and extending the right of citizen initiative. It is of course this concern for the rights of citizens to govern their own government that has made him a target of prosecution by Oklahoma’s anti-citizen-rights attorney general.

So which of these two basic reforms–each passionately detested by and perennially assaulted by career politicians and their establishmentarian allies–is the more critical to sustaining citizen control of government? In a recent interview with the Little Miss Atilla blog, Paul gives his answer.

“So term limits and ballot initiatives are complementary, equal parts of your approach to government reform?” I asked him.

“Complementary, yes. But not equal. Not equal at all,” he replied. “Just because I think term limits are the best thing since sliced bread, doesn’t mean I would give them priority over the initiative process. That’s the safeguard: that’s what gives citizens the ability to go over the heads of politicians.”

He’s right. As a chicken-and-egg problem, it’s not that mysterious, and a powerful reform like term limits is a good example of why. Lawmakers generally don’t pass term limits on themselves. Rather, we see state legislative term limits laws only in states with an initiative process that enables voters to end-run reluctant incumbents. The GOP-dominated U.S. Congress of the mid-90s had made some pre-election noises about congressional term limits, but was predictably anemic when it came to actually passing them. Only on the most local level do government officials ever take sincere steps to implement term limits without first losing a battle at the ballot box.

Also discussed in the interview is the beneficial impact of California’s Proposition 13 on the citizen initiative process–and the baleful impact of Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s prosecution of the Oklahoma Three:

“Since you’re here in California, you know I’m going to ask you about Proposition 13,” I remarked—alluding to Howard Jarvis’ ground-breaking “tax revolt” initiative from 1978. “That changed everything here; it allowed a lot of people to keep their houses.”

“I know it was huge here,” he told me. “But it was enormously beneficial outside California. It showed the possibilities of the initiative process.”

Talking with Mr. Jacob was a surrealistic experience: the whole saga sounded like something my friend Jane would be covering on behalf of the Yemenis; not events that that could be occurring in this country.

And yet, here he was—a good husband, and a father of three, looking at 10 years behind bars.

“My older daughter is getting married,” he told me. “So she’s making sure to have her wedding before we go to trial [tentatively scheduled for February 2009], so I can walk her down the aisle.”

This is reality; it affects every area of this family’s life.

There’s a lot of that head-shaking disbelief going around. Steve Forbes, the magazine publisher and former presidential candidate, can’t quite believe this is happening in America either.