Wal-Mart is famous for “Everyday low prices.” But now also for what we might call “everyday democracy.”

Around the country some folks want Wal-Mart stores in their communities and other folks don’t. Those who don’t make a lot of noise, but others must want the stores Wal-Mart doesn’t get its money from nowhere. To build each store, Wal-Mart must deal with zoning and permits and all the red tape and regulation of modern, er, civilization.

But when Wal-Mart couldn’t convince the Inglewood, California, city council to allow them to build a supercenter there, Wal-Mart decided to take its case to the voters. Wal-Mart is pushing an initiative that, if passed, will allow it to build the store. Organized labor is spearheading the opposition.

Some worry that Wal-Mart will buy the votes with TV ads and slick mailings. But quite a bit of research shows otherwise. People aren’t so gullible. “[M]oney doesn’t pass initiatives,” says Professor David Schultz of Hamline Unversity. Concluding her study on the issue, University of Michigan Professor Liz Gerber wrote, “[E]conomic interest groups are severely limited in their ability to pass new laws by initiative. . . . When they are able to mobilize sufficient financial resources to get out their message, citizen groups are much more successful at the ballot box, even when economic interest groups greatly outspend them.”

If voters support the initiative, it will be because they think Wal-Mart’s “everyday low prices” will improve their lives. And that’s something voters can decide better than politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.