
Lessons from California: The perils of extreme democracy - pelle
http://www.economist.com/node/18586520?story_id=18586520
======
TomOfTTB
I'm not a fan of direct democracy but this article isn't factually based.
Notice they only give one specific example. That one example is Prop 13 which
limited the amount of taxes that could be put on property and required a two-
thirds majority to pass any tax increases.

Now let me ask this: If Prop 13 is such a hindrance why is California in the
top 5 highest taxing states across the board?

Beyond that most of the initiatives are either social issues (Gay Marriage) or
done by Percentage (Prop 98 that requires 40% of general fund spending be
spent on Education).

So California's problems are not because of direct democracy. The reason the
Economist is writing about this now is because they are (by their own
admission) a left-leaning publication and Democrats in California believe the
solution to California's problems is a tax hike. But they can't get it done
without a couple Republicans because of the 2/3rd rule (imposed by Prop 13,
again the only named example in the article). So the problem from their
immediate perspective is "Direct Democracy".

But mark my words, some day down the line Republicans will get power in
California and they will want to cut money to public schools. When that
happens I'd bet all the money in my Bank Account the Democrats are going to be
holding Direct Democracy up as their savior.

~~~
scarmig
1) I believe your "top 5 highest taxing states" is inaccurate. In 2000, at
least, California ranked 19th in combined state + local tax burden according
to the U.S. Census Bureau, which is decidedly middle of the pack. Pretending
like we're the most highly taxed state in the country is deceptive and gives
the impression that good governance (well, bad in our case) comes for free.

Note that though the ranking of 19th does factor in our larger economy, it
doesn't account for the reality that more highly advanced economies require a
better trained and more specialized bureaucracy. So just as we shouldn't be
surprised when Sweden has a better compensated civil service than Namibia, all
things being equal we should expect for California government to account for a
larger portion of the economy than Mississippi's or Oklahoma's, instead of
being in the middle of the pack.

2) The Economist is left-leaning? Heh.

3) Most technocrats, be they left or right, absolutely hate the 40% rule as
well. As a Democrat, I'd gladly trade a repeal of Prop 98 for a repeal of Prop
13. Hell, I'd repeal Prop 98 just on its own.

Government by ballot box is terrible.

~~~
anamax
> In 2000, at least, California ranked 19th in combined state + local tax
> burden according to the U.S. Census Bureau

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United_States)

says that CA is 11th on a per-capita basis. However, Alaska (which is number
1) gets almost all of its tax revenue from folks who buy oil, most of whom are
in other states/countries. IIRC, Wyoming, #4, is similar. I don't recall
whether CT and DE, #5 and #7, get a lot of their revenue from corporate
francise fees, which are also (effectively) paid by folks in other places.

~~~
scarmig
In state level taxation. State and local taxation and spending, however, are
highly coupled, and looking at state level taxation in isolation can be
misleading. Especially in the case of California, where local property tax
rates were made artificially low, and as a result state income tax and sales
tax artificially high.

------
showerst
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist
until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the
public treasury." - Someone, probably with a T in their name. [1]

Having one or two layers of bureaucracy can provide a powerful buffer to
voters doing things for immediate gains, or based on popular trends. Certainly
some of how modern governments are set up is based on the time information
took to travel and the distances involved hundreds (or thousands) of years
ago, but I don't think that this point was lost on the early founders of
democratic systems.

People (especially Americans) often forget that a bureaucracy that slows
things down can provide the occasional benefit, right along with all its
costs.

[1]: <http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html>

~~~
bitwize
_People (especially Americans) often forget that a bureaucracy that slows
things down can provide the occasional benefit, right along with all its
costs._

Americans should be especially loath to forget this. Our government was
engineered with the goal of making it _very difficult_ to get anything done
through government.

------
WiseWeasel
I'll preface this by saying I'm largely a supporter of the referendum process
in my state of California, and I would be hesitant to give up the power it has
given me. That's not to say I don't see some of the big problems caused by
this system, though I'm not persuaded that the author has offered very
practical or substantial solutions.

"Initiatives should be far harder to introduce. They should be shorter and
simpler, so that voters can actually understand them. They should state what
they cost, and where that money is to come from. And, if successful,
initiatives must be subject to amendment by the legislature."

I disagree that initiatives should be harder to introduce. In the last
election, I had friends volunteering to collect petition signatures for the
legalization of marijuana initiative, and it was a struggle to coordinate an
effort large enough to collect the required signatures, testing the limits of
grassroots mobilization. If such a controversial topic as marijuana
legalization, with its army of local proponents in California, struggled to
motivate enough people to support a ballot initiative, then I must ask how
difficult it would be to organize an effort focusing on more mundane topics
which may be just as critical to our fiscal situation.

I don't see how a limit on complexity could be determined or enforced, but I
will agree that there is a lack of clear information on the likely
ramifications of a given ballot initiative. A better solution here would be to
have trusted 3rd parties providing assessments of various initiatives, perhaps
a state-level equivalent to the Congressional Budget Office offering credible
fiscal assessments.

One major improvement might be for initiatives to go through a process of
competitive runoff selection, where petition signatories could sign on to an
overarching policy goal (which is pretty much the only information they're
given before signing the petition in any case), such as the legalization of
marijuana, and then would be able to select from a variety of different
implementations of that policy goal, with the winning implementation getting
all the petition signatures.

One place I will agree with the author would be to allow our legislators a
greater ability to amend these initiatives, and if we're unhappy with the way
they exercise this power, we can always show them the door next election cycle
(or just recall them if they really pissed us off).

I wouldn't give up my initiative power without a fight, and I am strongly
encouraged that an unpopular law is only a petition and referendum away from
redress. It's not for nothing that California is the R&D center of this
laboratory of democracy we lovingly call the US states, with the California
initiative process leading the way on many social issues, which then spread to
the rest of the country. We should be careful not to throw out the baby with
the bath water.

~~~
akeefer
The problem is precisely that it's too difficult for grassroots volunteer
groups to put measures on the ballot, while at the same time being too easy
for well-funded private interests to get things on the ballot, which has
resulted in the current distorted use of the initiative system.

Most initiative signatures are not collected by volunteers, they're collected
by paid signature gathering organizations. And that's the problem the article
was getting at: that anyone with enough money can get an initiative on the
ballot by paying people to collect signatures, and once something's on the
ballot, they can spend enough money to try to persuade people to vote for it.
As a result, rich people and organizations can effectively buy legislation, or
even constitutional amendments. That's not how the initiative process was
intended to be used, but that's what we've got.

I'd also challenge you, if you're a fan of California's initiative system, to
take a look at all the initiatives that have passed over the last 10 years or
so. Now, remove the ones put on there by the state legislature (which is a lot
of them), and of the remaining ones, ask yourself: how many of these represent
a positive, populist change versus how many of them represent some corporate
special interest or populist outrage attempting to do something that is more
properly the responsibility of the legislature (like, in my opinion, the
three-strikes law or sex-offender laws) or even just out-right discriminatory
laws (like the various illegal immigration ones that have passed)? My personal
calculus has been that the initiative process has, on balance, done more harm
than good.

~~~
WiseWeasel
If laws are truly discriminatory, then they should be challenged in court.

I must agree with you that there is likely more harmful legislation coming out
of this process than beneficial, but I think that is largely a result of a
lack of honest communication, as well as a lack of follow-through on the part
of participating citizens.

I believe my proposed solution of having citizens sign petitions for an
overarching policy goal, and then having them choose from a list of
implementations under that goal, would do much to limit some of the more
egregious manipulation of those signing petitions. People could sign a policy
goal petition, providing a mailing address and email address, and once
sufficient signatures are collected to get on the ballot, signatories would be
sent a packet of competing initiatives to select from. The variant with the
most votes gets all the petition signatures and gets on the ballot. This would
give participating voters an opportunity to review what they're signing up
for, and perhaps become more informed of various alternative proposals which
would address the same putative issue. This will ultimately force special
interests to fight on a more level playing field with competing interests.

------
omouse
Wow, they're really going to argue that this is about costs? :|

I think the real problem is that there's still a state government. The people
who know how to balance the budget best and know what needs/wants they need to
fulfill are the people in local communities and counties. Give them more power
to deal with the budget and make the state government a council of delegates
from each of those counties and you won't have much of a problem anymore.

 _Indeed, in their guise of “Publius” in the “Federalist Papers”, Madison and
Hamilton warn against the dangerous “passions” of the mob and the threat of
“minority factions” (ie, special interests) seizing the democratic process._

They wanted a republic where representatives were accountable to their
constitutients. That doesn't happen anymore. Too often do representatives
ignore the ideas and opinions of their constituents. A representative should
be asking his constiuents wtf to do instead of being completely autonomous
(except on election day). The minority factions are the representatives
themselves which is why it's very important to keep any and all direct
democracy actions.

 _Initiatives should be far harder to introduce. They should be shorter and
simpler, so that voters can actually understand them. They should state what
they cost, and where that money is to come from. And, if successful,
initiatives must be subject to amendment by the legislature._

So give less voice to the people who actually make up the state. Shorter and
simpler because people are dumb? Why not make them longer with more arguments
to support them, or have them written in 2-3 different ways as a counter to
any biased/emotionally-heavy language?

The initiatives are voted on on a state-level. It's difficult to estimate
costs on something like that and it's difficult to say where the money will
come from. I guess it's a good idea though because then the marijuana
legalization initiative could say "this will cost $0, and will earn us $X".

They shouldn't be subject to amendment by the legislature. They should be
subject to amendment by the citizens. That might curb any special interest
group bullshit.

------
known
Unlike California (37 million),
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy> is more suitable for smaller
nations like Switzerland (7 million)

~~~
scarmig
Imagine a world where California were 4 or 5 separate states. Mendocino to
Santa Cruz, including the Bay Area, as one; LA and Ventura as another; San
Diego and the Inland Empire as a third; Central Valley, Shasta, etc. as the
4th.

Probably would improve governance, as the Republican Party we deal with in the
Bay Area would offer people like Tom Campbell instead of Prop 8 NOMers.

~~~
hugh3
I've always thought that the problem with America is too _many_ states, which
allows effective one-party states to develop.

In Australia there's only six states, and they're all large and
demographically diverse enough to be (in the American terminology) purple.
That means that there's a regular cycle of kicking the bums out and installing
the other set of bums every few election cycles, keeping things relatively
healthy.

In the US, though, problems seem to develop when one party controls the
legislature more or less indefinitely. In blue states this leads to slowly-
collapsing economies where public-sector unions slowly suck increasing amounts
of money out of the economy, and in perma-red states this leads to zany places
where sodomy is theoretically illegal and you can't even buy a vibrator.

So what we really need to do is join California up with Nevada, Arizona,
Idaho... maybe even as far as West Texas.

~~~
omouse
What you've pointed out are problems with large governments in general.

Australia still has a lot of problems and when you have larger states that
means the law applies to more people. Even if the majority of people are in
favour of a law, they're still forcing the minority to abide by their choices
and that's pretty much mob rule. On the flip side, if there's fewer people
voting in elections, a minority of voters can force the rest of the people in
the state to be represented by some jerkoff politician.

------
pnathan
News at 11: Pure democracy is unstable and should be avoided.

/read your histories of Athens to see why

~~~
JoachimSchipper
You're not wrong, but note that there are _lots_ of histories of Athens. The
same cannot be said for most contemporary states, which were almost all ruled
by a king/dictator or oligarchy.

Athens at least burned brightly.

------
truthtechnician
Pass a bill requiring the budget to be balanced. It's that simple.

