Mayor Bloomberg’s scheme to suppress the role of political parties in city elections is a matter we disagree with, but we take heart in the knowledge that it cannot happen without voter approval. This is just the sort of fundamental change in government that should be submitted to the people, and by November no conscientious citizen will have missed hearing at least a bit about the meager pros and substantial cons.

But now we find that Mr. Bloomberg’s representatives on the Charter Review Commission have polluted what should be a sacred process, slipping onto the ballot when no one was paying attention a potentially damaging anti-business proposal, one that the Legislature has already rebuffed. And given the arcane nature of the issue, and the stealth with which it has been handled to date, there is a chance the mayor may yet catch the electorate napping.

As our Wm. Hammond reports today, an obscure provision of ballot question no. 3 — which has the innocent-sounding rubric of “government administration” — would empower the Department of Consumer Affairs to prosecute all business owners at its own administrative tribunal rather than a full-fledged court of law. Due process be damned. The department would, in other words, become prosecutor, judge, and jury wrapped into one. Given the trends of this administration it doesn’t take much to imagine the fate that awaits our city’s already beleaguered entrepreneurial class if Consumer Affairs zealots are given such free rein.

Unfairly penalized business owners will have the option, of course, of appealing to a real judge. But they will not be able to overturn the department’s finding unless they can prove their innocence, which turns due process on its head. In America, no man or woman should be in a position of having to prove his or her innocence. The burden should always be on the prosecution. And given the cost of things, many businesses will pay unjust fines rather than face the cost and nuisance of going to court. The department has the gall to justify its Question 3 scheme on the basis that the city will save money on lawyers.

The thing smacks of being the latest tactic by a mayor who, having campaigned against raising taxes, has proven to have very sticky fingers in office. It also smacks of an end run around the elected officials at the City Council and the state Legislature who have wisely rejected this same idea in the past. If Mr. Bloomberg wants to rectify the situation, perhaps he will agree to put a new label on Question 3 to reflect more accurately its true intent: “business harassment and revenue raising.”