By Henry Lamb
Monday, October 30, 2006
There is a reason why america's founders created a representative government, rather than a direct democracy. Representative government makes public-policy sausage that requires a critical selection process for the ingredients, grinds the ingredients extensively through legislative debate, and produces a product that is more likely to be digestible.
Direct democracy, on the other hand, uses large chunks of ingredients, often selected by special-interest groups, rarely ground at all, and then forced into the diet of all the people who have no choice but to suffer the consequences.
Twenty-six states have adopted an initiative process that allows special interest groups to by-pass the restraints of representative government and let direct democracy make the public-policy sausage. California is among the leaders in this process.
In California, voters are being asked to select from a laundry list of candidates for a long list of public offices. Every voter knows how difficult it is to simply get acquainted with the candidates, to learn their position on the various issues of concern. California voters are also being asked to decide 13 public policy issues through the direct democracy ballot initiative process.
This means that in addition to getting acquainted with all the candidates on the ballot, voters are expected to learn the details of the pros and cons of 13 ballot initiatives, which total 180 pages, much of which can be accurately described as mumbo-jumbo. The critical selection process provided by representative government is bypassed, and selection is made on the basis of which special interest group has sufficient funds to pay signature collectors and attorney fees required to get a particular policy chunk on the ballot.
Once on the ballot, the relentless grinding process required by the representative government debate process is also bypassed. Instead, large chunks of policy ingredients are often misrepresented by their proponents and not fully understood by the voters, who must decide to accept or reject the policy proposal.
One of California's 13 ballot initiatives would severely restrict government's eminent domain power. Opponents of the measure don't even address the merits of the issue in their advertising, they simply encourage voters to oppose the measure because it is supported by rich developers and greedy property owners - while being opposed by the League of Conservation Voters and other environmental groups.
Complex issues such as regulatory takings, clean air standards, and the like, cannot be sufficiently ground into digestible public-policy sausage through 30-second TV ads, bumper stickers, billboards, and yard-signs. Public policy should be thoroughly considered in head-on debate by responsible people who are directly accountable to the voters. It's hard enough to get public policy right, even in the best representative government process. But through this process, the sausage, and its makers, can be thrown out, if the end product is indigestible. When indigestible public-policy sausage is made through signatures and sound bites, its hard to find any who will claim ownership when the product turns out to be rotten.
Some issues certainly should be approved or rejected by the voters. Elected officials should determine these issues. Bond issues, tax increases, city-county annexation, are typically the kinds of issues that elected officials want their constituents to ratify or reject.
California's 16-page Proposition 87, which would create a $4 billion program to reduce petroleum consumption by 25%, increase taxes for oil producers, prohibit producers from recouping the tax, and 15 more pages of details - should be very finely ground through the legislative debate process. Instead, voters hear 30-second sound bites that appeal to emotions and ignore negative consequences.
On November 7, 15 of the 26 initiative states will have 86 initiatives on the ballot, most of which should be much more extensively considered by elected representatives. The reality is that few of the voters will even read the initiatives, and even fewer will understand the consequences of their vote. Many will simply ignore the initiatives, and not vote at all. The result: the special interest proponents who have the most money will likely win.
In Washington, where ballot initiative 933 seeks to limit regulatory takings, The Nature Conservancy leads in financial contributions to the opponents who have outspent the proponents nearly three-to-one.
This is no way to make public policy in a representative government. This trend toward the initiative process has grown because elected officials have not been responsive to the needs of their constituents. Consequently, the method of sausage-making prescribed by our founders is being transformed, and the public-policy sausage our nation is fed is becoming increasingly indigestible.
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