Democracy eating itself in California
Lawyers can find ways to undermine statutes if they are carelessly drafted. Unfortunately, a statute written to pre-empt us evil lawyers (as most statutes are) is by necessity less fun to read than it is to watch grass grow. That's part of the reason why the task of drafting and voting on statutes is a full-time job for people with staffs to do all that stuff and the resources to hold hearings and get relevant evidence. Voting on statutes is not a good thing to foist onto overburdened voters. Ballot initiatives and referenda are a poor way to govern.
The undesirable results of ballot initiative madness can be found in California, where legislators have hardly any discretion over the one thing that legislators ought to have discretion over -- the budget, because ill-conceived and sometime inconsistent ballot initiatives tie their hands.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is now proposing to tie the legislature's hands more, with a ballot initiative that will mandate a ceiling on spending levels. This in addition to mandates for California to spend greater amounts in other areas and limits on taxation. What happens the next time a need arises that isn't contemplated by these rules? And why would any exceptions that the proposal may contemplate overwhelm its purpose in the first place?
Rather than increase democracy, as ballot initiatives are sold, this proposal would further diminish the rights of the people (through their elected representatives, true) to budget flexibly as they need to in the future.
The undesirable results of ballot initiative madness can be found in California, where legislators have hardly any discretion over the one thing that legislators ought to have discretion over -- the budget, because ill-conceived and sometime inconsistent ballot initiatives tie their hands.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is now proposing to tie the legislature's hands more, with a ballot initiative that will mandate a ceiling on spending levels. This in addition to mandates for California to spend greater amounts in other areas and limits on taxation. What happens the next time a need arises that isn't contemplated by these rules? And why would any exceptions that the proposal may contemplate overwhelm its purpose in the first place?
Rather than increase democracy, as ballot initiatives are sold, this proposal would further diminish the rights of the people (through their elected representatives, true) to budget flexibly as they need to in the future.
Labels: majoritarianism
posted by honestpartisan | 6:21 PM
6 Comments:
Thanks, Jack, I didn't think about voter initiatives this way until you mentioned it, but you're totally right.
It reminds me of a story I heard from one of the early adopters of polling to make decisions. He said he did whatever two-thirds of the people said he should, based on the poll numbers, and after three decisions *everyone* hated him.
Politics is the messy process of finding a consensus... holding referendums is a cop-out.
I find it hard to describe a direct democratic process as restricting democracy.
There's a simple solution if the competing demands of California's initiatives are making it impossible to set a budget. Lay it out in an honest, straightforward manner. Tell the people "Here are our demands for spending, and what we're paying for other major budget items. Here's our taxes, and here's how we're restricted in raising them." Then explain what might happen in the future without changes to these laws. The legislators could then propose changes (not elimination) to these initiatives, to increase their flexibility and better serve the people of California.
If the legislators can't explain why the people's laws are a problem, then they don't deserve to see them changed.
I don't think that California's ballot initiatives are at all morally equivalent with fascism. But there are instructive parallels. As Robert Paxton points out in his book "Anatomy Of Fascism", what distinguishes fascism from other forms of repressive government is that fascists like Hitler and Mussolini came to power by democratic means, and ended democratic governance with the acclaim and approval of the electorate. (He defines a dictator like Franco to be "authoritarian", since he didn't come to power this way).
What I'm getting at is that it's very possible for a democratic process to yield an undemocratic result. By sacrificing the flexibility of elected representatives to take appropriate measures, I think that ballot initiatives that restrict taxing and spending are anti-democratic. And I think that, as admirable as the goals you outline are, it's really hard to fight against demagoguery that accompanies these putative panaceas.
I agree with you HP, and have made this point about ballot initiatives in the past.
Good governance, and good legislation, requires tradeoffs. Initiatives are a poor substitute for that. We have had similar problems in Washington State, where an initiative has reduced taxes, while the spending was still mandated by law and there was no mechanism for balancing the two.
In extreme cases, particularly the meta-issues such as Gerrymandering, I support the initiative process. Raising government revenue and choosing the ammount of Government expendatures as well as passing other laws is the duty of the elected representatives.
A Democratic Republic is far superior to direct Democracy in my opinion.
One other example occurs to me. Ballot initiatives in New York States are usually pretty limited, but I think that there's some state constitutional provision that says that bond issues have to be approved by referenda. Occasionally when I go to vote I see the bond issue on the ballot.
Now, I'm pretty interested in policy and political issues and I make an effort to keep up with them. And I never have the first clue about the merits of the bond issue on the ballot. Who does? Why is this a burden that voters have to bear?
I'm not sure I agree with you on the bond issues thing.
Usually these are local bonds, that have a designated purpose and a reletively great effect on individual voters.
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