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The Blog Watch
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, May 11, 2008
Story appeared in FORUM section, Page E2
Is all this direct democracy worth it?
Posted by Brian Leubitz
About 220 years ago, America's Founding Fathers got together and wrote an interesting little document dubbed the Constitution. It is a flexible document that has allowed us to move from an agrarian economy with heavy usage of slave labor to the modern bustling nation that we see today. In case you failed to notice, the signs of democracy are all around these days. This great document, which despite the Bush administration's best efforts, has stood the test of time. But notice what's missing from the Constitution: Direct democracy.
Heck, the Founders didn't even want senators to be directly elected. That didn't come until the early 20th century. But here in California we can thank the railroads and Hiram Johnson for installing direct democracy in some pseudo-Athenian experiment. Johnson intended the ballot initiative to be a way for the "little guy" to trump the moneyed interest (at the time, the railroads). The trouble is, it hasn't worked. Ever.
It has never been a very good means of the grass-roots triumphing over anybody really. It has now become a full-employment mechanism for political types (um, thanks Hiram) and a means of bypassing the traditional means of getting a law passed: the Legislature. …
In case you doubt the role of money in initiative politics, there's a story in The Bee: "Legislators have no fund-raising limit for ballot measure accounts," May 5.
Despite a 2000 law meant to curb the size of checks California politicians could collect from deep-pocketed interest groups, many lawmakers are skirting those limits by soliciting funds for ballot accounts. In many cases, the money is arriving in increments of tens, and even hundreds, of thousands of dollars. The ballot accounts are legal and can be created without a specific ballot measure in mind. ...
Recently, the Center for Governmental Studies released a report on the initiative process that recommended some pretty substantial changes, but the question is out there, is the initiative system worth saving? …
– The Blog Watch is compiled by Gary Reed, Forum editor
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