Direct Democracy or Representative Republic: Which Do You Prefer?
I generally prefer the actions of a representative republic over those of a direct democracy. Yesterday’s Kansas City Star had a sound article about the recently failed mayoral recall, and then dove into the larger questions of referendums, petitions, and recalls. The article explains:
Direct democracy — the ability of citizens to enact and overturn laws and representatives through initiative, referendum and recall petitions — has been a fixture of Missouri politics for a century and is deeply embedded in Kansas City’s charter, its governing document.
St. Louis County’s charter is pretty open to these things as well. St. Louis city’s rules are crazy, though, if you remember the spat of recall elections a few years back during which recalls were being used as nothing more than a weapon to continue fighting a losing campaign. (Not every recall during that period was unjustified, though, in my opinion.)
Perhaps I am being inconsistent, because I readily admit I love the Hancock Amendment and its requirements for voting on most tax increases. But for the most part, I support allowing elected officials to make decisions and then having the voters judge those decisions at the next election. Recalls should be saved for misconduct, and time spent working for initiative petitions would be better spent, in my opinion, convincing legislators to introduce and support those same proposals. If that fails, convince new people to run for office on a platform of those proposals. If that fails, maybe you need to admit that nobody likes your stupid idea.
Some of my erstwhile allies in the article do a pretty good job of changing my own opinion, however:
“I think the legislative process at its best is far superior to the initiative process,” said Bob Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, a group proposing major reforms in the state’s initiative and referendum procedures.
In a recent study — which refers to voters as government’s fourth branch — Stern’s group found that initiative petitions “are frequently too long and complex. … Voters frequently struggle to make informed decisions.”
With friends like these … I guess you have to really love government to envision it “acting at its best,” and I bet legislators “struggle to make informed decisions,” too. How many officials actually read the stimulus bill? And voters are the dumb ones?
What I don’t like is the ease of putting new laws on the ballot, like they have in California. New laws should be hard to enact, with checks and balances, not just put on the ballot because some group has enough funding to pay signature gatherers. (A practice that should be legal, by the way, just not encouraged.)
While I prefer letting legislators do, or better yet, not do, their jobs, I agree it is important to keep the options of petitions, recalls, etc. available. I think their mere presence has a positive impact, especially in controlling the most unethical behaviors. Some times the petition process has been crazy, and sometimes it has been outstanding. I am sure it has a higher batting average than legislators themselves, but I still think it should be used as a check and balance, not the primary way we make decisions.
I support direct democracy whenever feasible. At the theoretical level, direct democracy is undoubtedly superior to representation; giving citizens a clear, direct, unfiltered channel to voice their desires. Indeed direct democracy is the only way to ensure that the value and integrity of these desires is honored. It would be wonderful if issues before every level of government came to the citizens to decide (I’m envisioning a highly secure infrastructure that would allow citizens to digitally vote on local, state, and national issues of their choices from their homes). Mr. Stern is misguided. That we adopt representative republic over unfettered direct democracy is not a testament to the ideological superiority of representation, rather it is merely a reflection of the “impracticality” of direct democracy and the time preference of citizens. Representatives pervert the purity of the Citizen Voice; they are a “necessary” (and sometimes useful) evil, but not a superior choice.
Comment by Abhi Sivasailam — June 23, 2009 @ 3:15 p.m.
As I understand it, the US is a representative democracy for the same reason that the electoral college was introduced and that our Constitution set up so many checks and balances: the framers of the constitution wanted to reign in the tyranny of the majority.
I recognize that advocating direct democracy is not the same thing as calling for removal of barriers to enacting the will of the majority(checks, balances, etc) but I am wary of concepts like the Citizen Voice. I want as little of my life and everyone else’s to be devoted to getting what we want politically. If it can be got, let’s use the market, not majority rule.
Comment by Josh Smith — June 23, 2009 @ 3:25 p.m.
I outlined my own position on this issue last year:
http://www.showmedaily.org/2008/02/initiative-refe.html
In short, there’s no doubt that the initiative & referendum process has led to some terrible laws being passed, but those drawbacks are few and far between. Overall, I&R has cut taxes, slashed spending, passed term limits, and increased government transparency.
The drawbacks are especially slim when compared to the track record of legislators, who regularly pass laws that make the worst excesses of citizen initiatives seem like models of fiscal restraint.
So, ultimately, I see the initiative process as one more check on government power — which is, as you’ve pointed out, fully compatible with the structure of a representative republic. We might quibble about just how easy it should be to get something on a ballot, or what percentage of the vote any particular proposal should have to garner before passing, but direct democracy is an essential *component* of a functional republic.
Comment by Eric D. Dixon — June 23, 2009 @ 3:57 p.m.
Direct democracy is a bad idea. I don’t want legions of selfish people running my life. Democracy always fails. All Democracies become dictatorships at some point. US Presidents have far more power than any monarch ever did, and yet we put up with it because we constatnly dupe ourselves (with lots of help from the government and media) that we are governing ourselves.
Representative republican government isn’t perfect, but it is a better form of government. But even republics fail, and that is why we have a constitution. Most people erroneously believe that the Constitution is about what rules the people can live by, but really, it is a strict explanation of what the government can and cannot do. That is why the first amendment begins with “Congress shall make NO law…”. Meaning that the US Government cannot make laws against freedom of speech, religion, assembly, etc. even if it became popular to do so, which it has.
In terms of protecting the rights of the individuals, I think constitutional/parliamentary monarchy is a better form of government, but that’s another story.
Comment by Joe Nonnenkamp — June 24, 2009 @ 11:39 a.m.
Great comments, everyone. Not surprisingly, I agree with Josh, Eric, and Joe, although not necessarily with Joe’s history points.
Democracy has not been around long enough in a widespread fashion to know if Joe is right or not, but we have had it here for 233 years and we are still a democracy. And Roman Emperors had far more power over their subjects lives than the President has over mine. But that aside, Joe is right on with him comments about republics and the Constitution better protecting the rights of individuals.
Comment by David Stokes — June 24, 2009 @ 12:01 p.m.
Actually, the US was never really intended to be a democracy. Benjamin Franklin famously compared it to “two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for dinner”. That is why the founders created a federal republic with a careful system of checks and balances.
The only branch of government that was directly elected from the beginning was the House of Representatives. The Electoral College was established for indirect election of the president (still in place today), and Senators were appointed by state legislatures. Back when the country was founded, hardly anyone voted. In the first few presidential elections, state legislatures directed their electoral college members. Not democratic by any means, but that system gave us Washigton, Jefferson, Adams and Madison, while our current system has given us Nixon, Bush and Obama. I don’t oppose universal suffrage, but it’s something to think about. It’s also worth noting that Alexander Hamilton favored a permanent president.
The Seventeenth Amendment was a step towards a more democratic system by having senators directly elected, and as a result, the states lost any representation they had at the federal level, and the senate is now just a glorified rubberstamp house. Few people would argue that the people’s interests are far better represented in the house.
Comment by Joe Nonnenkamp — June 25, 2009 @ 10:38 a.m.