BETTER EDUCATION NEEDED FOR PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

Educating the Revolution

Asset B21970 Posted By Szamko
Source: http://www.gnn.tv/threads/23773/Educating_the_Revolution

Democracy is supposed to be a central goal for radical movements, from anarchism – which seeks to work towards a democracy free of hierarchy and evolving from the bottom up, with no role for the state – to mainstream conservatism – which seeks a regulated democracy and a strong state which can ensure social and economic stability. Even the Peoples’ Republics of the Eastern Bloc maintained a constant democratic facade, even as in practice, they developed systems of control which we tend to reject as authoritarian. In his own world view too, Hitler was a democrat, ruling with the people, for the people (or the Volk) as a conduit for the general will.

So Democracy is a contested idea. Despite its centrality to the rhetoric of state systems across the political spectrum, however, the practice of democracy is usually shallow when it is not an illusion. Democracy restricted to periodic representative elections is much less than the rule of the people, which the concept presupposes.

So how can we move towards ruling ourselves, as the most radical democrats demand, while still allowing for the pooling of our sovereignty within larger social units, as practicality requires?

One of the most crucal aspects of building a democratic society is also one of the most overlooked. Few people have argued in favor of the radical democratization of education, but there can be no adult democracy without the development of self rule and the confidence to participate in democratic structures at an early age. We emerge from school, all too often, adults in the economy, but children in democracy. It’s not surprising that public participation in policy formulation and implementation, along with social movements and anti-war activism are so far from the mainstream.

But we require popular participation in order to effect social change. So democratic schooling is an essential element of future democracy. Well directed public policy intended to create the conditions of democracy at a high-school (or secondary school) level could act as a “non-reformist reform” – a reform intended to help generate the conditions for revolutionary change. It is so palatable to the professed ideals of many societies that a slightly left of center government could put it into place.

What do I mean by the democratization of education? Obviously it is a massive subject, and because it is a little studied one, we have to proceed somewhat in the dark, but some outlines might be drawn to begin.

Firstly, the strengthening of student bodies, school parliaments, debating societies, even to the extent of creating participatory budgeting for sections of school life are options to bring young people into the process. That process I would suggest, is not the process of entering the “political system” but gaining the confidence and skills to rework that system, while encouraging self rule.

Secondly, and perhaps more radically, I propose the introduction of “pupil shares” – in which each member of the school (teachers included) receives a share of the funding set aside for the school by government. The level of this funding would then be linked to factors like academic performance, participation in political events, cultural production, level of participation in sport.

It could even be linked into efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of the school. Schools which work to install solar panels or grow food on permaculture plots within school grounds, or institute recycling programs, would receive credits for doing so.

So each pupil would benefit from the collective actions of the school. At the end of the education of each pupil, they could qualify to withdraw a set amount from the annual funding (say, five percent of their share) and this amount could be negotiated within the school through democratic means. Naturally bright high-fliers would still have the strong incentive to perform well in the form of good grades and university admission. Everybody would have an incentive to help with tutoring in order to raise the general “share price” of the school.

The ownership of “one share” in the school itself, if formulated on a basis of equality between staff and pupils (the share could amount to quite a large amount of money) would give pupils far more bargaining power with staff and even with the school board and wider community. Class presidents would become meaningful positions, able to lead their electorate into strike action, go slows, or into more positive actions like organizing political debates.

If teachers depend upon the share price (to an extent) for bonuses, and the pupils for future gain (or maybe some sort of social credit system to help them access university or employment) then a system of trade offs would operate. At times, the pupils would consider taking collective action to influence school policy. At other times, they would reject it as counter-productive. Teachers would have an incentive to work with students, rather than “above” them.

At the moment, pupils are taught down to by necessity. Education is almost uniformly an experience of being given facts and tasks in which the pupil has little negotiating power or creative input. It’s a poor schooling for the give and take, group bargaining and collective action needed to generate democratic change outside the school.

There are some obvious objections to be made from a radical perspective (and many for conservatives). The linking of democracy to monetary gain, even if this gain is related to socially beneficial production and sustainability, might be seen as a schooling in speculative capitalism and personal accumulation rather than in solidarity and mutual aid. I would agree, but suggest that in any pathway towards genuine social change there are trade-offs and stepping stones. The benefits from promoting collective action and responsibility outweigh the potentially insidious effects of “monetarising democracy.”

Secondly, you might argue that linking individual political development into the collective fate of the school, promotes the kind of allegiance to nation and state that non-reformist reforms would seek to weaken. Having a nation of democratic schools competing against each other for prestige, would change little from the local patriotism shown by many schools right now. But if student democracy develops as I believe it might, then it will overflow the boundaries of the school and enter the wider community. Beyond that even, delegates could be elected to regional student bodies to coordinate cultural or political events.

There is no telling precisely what the effect of creating such a virtuous cycle would be. However, any move towards brining participatory democracy into the mainstream is welcome and, increasingly, essential.

A DEBATE ABOUT PARECON

Decentralization, Communism, & Model-Building

Wednesday October 08, 2008 00:08
by Wayne Price
Source: http://www.anarkismo.net/article/10116

From my Parecon Debate with Michael Albert

Further selections from my literary debate on Znet with Michael Albert, co-founder of Parecon. The full debate can be found on
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/zdebatealbertvspric...e.htm

Decentralism

In Kropotkin’s famous essay on “Anarchism” for the Encyclopedia Britannica, he wrote that, under socialist anarchism, “True progress lies in the direction of decentralization, both territorial and functional, in the development of the spirit of local and personal initiative, and of free federation from the simple to the compound….”

Parecon has decentralist aspects, in its roots in workplace and consumer councils. But economically, it proposes a series of back-and-forth responses among the councils of the U.S., guided by facilitators, to result in a single plan which will be accepted for a period. This single, overriding, plan covers the whole country, which in our case includes most of a continent. Not surprisingly, in your Parecon: Life After Capitalism, you have a section rejecting “Green Bioregionalism” (hc, p. 80f). Similarly, Robin Hahnel, has a section in his book, Economic Justice and Democracy, which rejects “Community-Based Economics” (trade pb, p. 181f). So, if Parecon is not centralist, as such, neither is it decentralist.

This limits direct democracy. Instead of a local council having a significant say in the economic (and other) factors that directly affect its people, the council has only a tiny voice, being one out of a zillion councils in the whole country, making a tiny impact on the whole plan. Most of those deciding on the plan (the 330 million other people) are not you or your workmates or neighbors. Once the overall plan is decided on, the local workplace may decide how to carry it out, and the local community may make local decisions, but only within the framework of the overall national plan.

I do not insist that everything be decentralized, but I do have a bias in favor of decentralization. Social institutions should be as decentralized as possible, as much in human scale as possible, with only as much centralization and big institutions and buildings as absolutely necessary. This makes it possible for people to directly control their lives and to make decisions whose outcomes they can foresee, without power being in the hands of distant authorities. But if some industries can only function with big factories in a few central places, so be it. Big universities might need to be supported by several regions. “Representation” may be needed, but it can only be democratic if people experience self-rule locally in day-to-day decision-making. Regions encourage social, economic, and political experimentation, different ways of handling similar problems

Libertarian Communism

You seem to think that I advocate (small-c) communism (not statism, as you know, but as a method of motivating workers and sharing society’s wealth). First, I am open to several possibilities being tried out in different regions (Parecon, full communism, Takis Fotopoulis’ model, etc.). However, I have a personal preference, which is not to go immediately into full communism, where income is completely disconnected from work. Instead there needs to be some form of reward for work, as in the Parecon program or otherwise. But, I believe, the long term goal should be full communism (what Marx called the higher phase of communism): “From each according to their ability to each according to their needs.” Anything short of this still has some necessary inequalities, left over from capitalism. You write, “In parecon I get income for working longer and harder.” But some people are able to work longer and harder than others. And people have unequal and different needs and desires.

Already, our technology is potentially so productive that it could (eventually) provide plenty for all with hardly any labor. Unpleasant tasks could be rotated, with everyone expected to do their share. We could become so productive that there would be more people wanting work than there would be needed jobs (as foretold in William Morris’ News from Nowhere). People would combine necessary labor, what little is left, with creative crafts. I propose that a socialist-anarchist society (or Parecon) begin with a basic communist sector (according to what it can afford), such as health, and minimal food, clothing and shelter. Over decades or generations, as productivity (and social consciousness) rise, this sector can be expanded until it covers everything.

In Realizing Hope, you yourself conclude that at some time after Parecon has been in place, “…Maybe a new aim will be removing the whole idea of measure regarding human traits, or even the whole idea of warranting rewards at all” (pb, p. 188). You refer to the wonderful anarchist-communist utopian novel, Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed.


Concluding Statement: Model-Building and Electoralism

Much of our difference is that Michael Albert is a model-builder and I am not. This causes us to talk past each other, despite the wide range of things on which we do agree. Michael and other Pareconers keep on trying to interpret my comments as though I am proposing an alternate model of post-capitalist society. So they ask how a decentralized socialist society would work, how goods would be exchanged among regions, how libertarian communism would value goods, and so on? Frankly, I do not know the answers and am not worried about that.

It is important to have a vision, a utopian set of values, of a different, more human, unalienated, way for people to live and work and to relate to each other. This is opposed to the Marxist tendency to let the Goddess of the Historical Process take care of everything. That is a dangerous approach because it leads to accepting whatever the historical process turns up, such as totalitarianism, and calling it socialism. A workers’ revolution must be conscious, with a true analysis of how society works and with a deliberate goal. This is different from the capitalist revolutions, whose main task was to remove barriers to the market and then let it automatically perform; therefore it was possible to have all sorts of illusions and false consciousness. However this does not mean that a revolution of the workers and oppressed must have a worked-out model, as opposed to a set of values. The working people can deliberately set about to develop a new society, consciously trying out various approaches.

It can be useful for someone to develop a more-or-less detailed model of how a vision could be concretized, how it might actually work. Besides Parecon, I can think of Bookchin’s Libertarian Municipalism, Takis Fotopoulis’ Inclusive Democracy, Paul Goodman’s Scheme II in Communitas, Pat Devine’s ideas, Kirkpatrick Sale’s bioregionalism, Guild Socialism, Castoriadis’
plan factory,and so on. Not to mention the ideas Marx raised in passing in the Critique of the Gotha Program and elsewhere. (There are also models of decentralized market socialisms, which I reject but I would be against other regions invading an area which had adopted such a model, unless exploitation was reintroduced.)

It is important to study all these and other models, but I have no need to endorse any one (aside from rejecting market socialism or state planning). I am willing to be in the same revolutionary organization with people who are committed to any of them. No one knows how a free people would reorganize production and politics after a revolution.

I am an experimentalist. Under socialist anarchism, people will try out different plans at different times in different regions. There will be constant reorganizing. To quote Kropotkin again, from his encyclopedia article on “Anarchism,” “Such a society would represent nothng immutable….Harmony would (…) result from an ever-changing adjustment and readjustment of equilibrium between the multitude of forces and influences, and this adjustment would be easier to obtain as none of the forces would enjoy a special protection from the State.”

Once we agree on a general vision, then what matters most is our program for the here-and-now, what we are going to do, what we say to advanced workers who are listening to us (even if it is mostly propaganda for the future). Which is why I could be in the same organization as Pareconists, anarchist-communists, libertarian Marxists, anarchist-syndicalists, and so on, if we agree on our program for the next period.

This is why I keep on raising the issue of voting for Obama and other Democrats, even though this is a peripheral question for Michael and even though there are other Pareconists who disagree with him. Is there something in the Parecon program which leads Michael as well as Robin Hahnel (the co-founders of Parecon) to be willing to vote for an imperialist war monger? If so, this is a problem. Or is there no connection between the model of Parecon and one’s position on voting in capitalist elections? If so, this may be even worse. What good is Parecon if it gives no guidance to current political action?

(Michael’s comparison of voting for—and working for—Obama with getting a job in the capitalist economy is pretty weak. I have to work in order to feed myself and my family. I can live perfectly well without voting for my class enemy. I work because I have to; it does not imply support for capitalism. Voting for Obama, and urging others to do so, means giving political support to a politician and his capitalist program. Also, respecting other people’s motives does not require that we agree with them.)

Tom Wetzel has associated Parecon with the idea that mass movements of opposition should be participatory and directly democratic. I agree with this. And I agree with Michael’s belief that movements should be militant and threatening to the ruling class, so that it will make concessions. This approach would seem to contradict support for the Democrats and the passivity of reliance on capitalist elections. However, it is not necessarily connected to the specific program of Parecon as distinct from a general revolutionary libertarian socialism.

I believe that a revolutionary anarchist organization should not be primarily formed around a specific model of post-capitalist society. Instead it should be in general agreement on a vision, open to specific ways that vision may be eventually embodied, and in general agreement on a program for the coming period.

Right now we are at a major turning political turning point. A large part of the U.S. population is moving to the left, and many are losing their faith in capitalism. Right now, both Parecon and revolutionary class struggle anarchism are extremely marginal but this will change. We are parts of the same libertarian socialist movement and should work together where we can.

THE VOTERS OF ARIZONA: DEFENDING DIRECT DEMOCRACY

'The Voters of Arizona' is a committee organized to oppose proposition 105 which will roll back initiative & referendum and direct democracy in Arizona. The organization seeks to defend Arizona's direct democractic institutions. Read the following press release and visit their website for more information. CLICK HERE: http://thevotersofaz.com/ - Editor

Press Release: Newspapers Endorse No on Prop 105

October 9, 2008

Source: http://thevotersofaz.com/

Four out of four newspapers statewide agree: Vote NO on Prop 105

Unanimously, newspapers statewide agree that come this Election Day voters should vote NO on Prop 105. The Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune, Yuma Sun, and Tucson Weekly have all come to the conclusion that Prop 105 is a misleading measure that should not be passed by Arizona voters.

If passed, Prop 105 will amend our constitution and require a majority of all people registered to vote to vote YES in order to pass any future initiatives in Arizona, taking away a fundamental right of our citizens, the right to a fair election process.

If Prop 105 passes, 80 percent of those voting on a ballot initiative would need to vote yes for it to pass. Under these rules no initiative since 1974 that was passed by voters and enacted in to law would have passed—including the statewide smoking ban in 2006. Prop 105 effectively kills the initiative process in Arizona, which is the closest thing we have to a direct democracy.

Prop 105 is misleading and encourages voter apathy, and would make elections unfair. It would amend the Arizona Constitution to, in essence, automatically cast a no vote for those who don’t bother to vote, for those who have moved, or for those who are recently deceased.

About The Voters of Arizona

The Voters of Arizona is a political campaign committee composed of individuals and organizations. Visit www.thevotersofaz.com for more information.

No on Prop 105 has been endorsed by newspapers statewide including The Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune, Yuma Sun, and Tucson Weekly.

Paid for by The Voters of Arizona – No On Prop 105. Major funding by Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona, Arizona School Board Association, and the National Education Association (an out-of-state contributor with 34,227 members in Arizona).

OREGON: A HIGHLY ACTIVE DIRECT DEMOCRACY

Is Direct Democracy in Oregon Too Much of a Good Thing?

By Steve Holgate
Source: http://newsblaze.com/story/20080925091217tsop.nb/topstory.html

Voters in Oregon's 1st Congressional District are taking the law into their own hands. In fact, so are voters throughout the state, and they have been doing it for years.

Oregon is one of 24 states that give voters the right to place proposed laws and constitutional amendments on the state ballot via petition.

Since 1902, Oregon voters have used the petition to change the state's political landscape. In 1908 they instituted the recall election, allowing citizens to remove elected officials from office before the expiration of their terms. Another early initiative authorized one of the nation's first open primaries, giving voters the power to choose their party's nominees for office.

In recent years, Oregon voters have placed on the ballot and passed several important measures, including limits on property taxes, increased rights for crime victims, term limits for legislators, and a controversial measure on physician-assisted suicide.

But many Oregonians are wondering if this long-respected institution has become too much of a good thing.

BALLOT INITIATIVES MUSHROOMED IN RECENT YEARS

The initiative process was used sparingly for its first 85 years, averaging about one measure per year. Since the 1990s, it has mushroomed, with 20 initiatives on the ballot in 2000. In 1996, more than 200 ballot measure petitions were circulated in the state, with only a small minority gaining enough support to appear on the ballot. The use of initiatives has dropped a bit since 2000, but there were still, on average, about eight initiatives each in 2002, 2004 and 2006.

Some recent citizen initiatives were judged unconstitutional and overturned by the courts. On other occasions, approved ballot measures contradicted each other or were worded so vaguely as to be unworkable.

A cloud over the process has been cast by the activities of a man named Bill Sizemore, who has sponsored more initiatives than anyone else in the state's history, including one with the greatest impact of any Oregon ballot initiative in decades: His 1996 ballot measure drastically restricted property tax increases. More recently, a court found he had used forged signatures and filed false financial reports during his initiative efforts. It ordered his organization to pay more than $3 million in damages. Although portions of that ruling were set aside by an appeals court, the litigation damaged Sizemore's credibility with some voters.

Despite these problems, most Oregonians know some recent ballot measures have proven successful and remain an important check on government officials. Voters are seeking reform, rather than abolition, of the initiative process. Reforms already enacted include a ban on paying petition circulators for each signature gathered. Perhaps ironically, this reform was achieved through a ballot initiative.

In 2007, the Oregon Legislature created further restrictions, including a requirement for registering and training petition circulators. Supporters of the reforms say they will give new relevance and life to a cherished example of direct democracy. Opponents call them unjustified restrictions on free speech.

The 2008 ballot will be the last before the new measures take effect.

MEASURES ON THE 2008 BALLOT

Eight measures - five sponsored by Sizemore - are on the upcoming ballot. One would limit bilingual classes in public schools. Others would reduce state revenues by increasing tax deductions, require teachers' pay increases to be based on student achievement rather than teacher seniority, require harsher sentences for criminals (two initiatives), dedicate more money to public safety, and harmonize voting eligibility for school board elections with eligibility requirements for other state and local elections.

The most far-reaching measure might be a proposal to eliminate the traditional party primaries, which were established by one of the first successful initiatives a century ago. Instead of holding a separate primary election for each party, Oregon would hold only one joint primary, with the top two nominees going forward to the November general election, regardless of party affiliation. Proponents say it would encourage more moderate candidates. Critics counter that one of the major parties could end up with no candidate on the November ballot.

Whatever the fate of this year's ballot initiatives, 2008 could be the last year that Oregon voters face such a range of petitions and ballot measures. Whether that is good or bad is still a subject of debate.

This article is part of America.gov's continuing coverage of seven of the 435 U.S. congressional districts during the 2008 campaign. Each offers a different prism from which to view U.S. politics. For more information, see U.S Elections - State and Local ( http://uspolitics.america.gov/uspolitics/elections/stateandlocal.html ).

Source: U.S. Department of State

CRAIGSLIST FOUNDER ON DIRECT DEMOCRACY THROUGH e-DEMOCRACY

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark in the following piece presents his thoughts on the possibilites for more direct democracy facilitated by the internet. He discusses both how the internet is already aiding participatory democracy at the grassroots level by providing more access to information through the alternative media of independent bloggers and news media, and how more transparency and accountability in government is acheived through this freer flow of information. He also discusses the future possibilities for e-Democracy, truly direct democracy achieved by every citizen casting their vote on legislation via the internet. - Editor

New technology brings us to old idea

By CRAIG NEWMARK 10/2/08 4:56 AM EDT
Source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14183.html

Americans this election season are using the Internet to vastly expand their ability to participate directly in our democracy, but it’s just a beginning. Over the next 20 years, our governments will adopt a form of direct democracy envisioned by the Founding Fathers that previously was impossible to carry out.

Two hundred years ago, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin and the other forefathers of today’s bloggers embraced the notion that government should function with the consent of the governed. Key to the success of the idea was exploiting communications technology, including the printing press and the postal service.

Based on similar efforts in the ancient Roman republic and Britain, the Founders designed a government based on a small number of elected representatives, with a separate judiciary. Checks and balances were provided so that one group couldn’t seize power. A free press served as a further check against tyranny.

In recent years, the balances have seriously eroded, but at the same time, a new communication technology, the Internet, has flourished.

People use the Net as their own printing press, giving them a voice and a reach they’ve never had before, for better or for worse. They are networking at the grass-roots level more effectively than ever before.

In politics, Democrat Howard Dean pioneered use of the Net for organizing and fundraising in his 2004 presidential bid. He was ahead of his time, though, because broadband technology had not yet reached critical mass, with the resulting spike in traffic.

Given the low cost of Net advertising of any sort, it appears the 2008 election starts the transition from very expensive, top-down campaigns to less expensive, network-driven ones.

Following Dean’s example, many candidates this year are using the Net for fundraising and organizing with extraordinary effect. Barack Obama’s campaign is based largely on grass-roots networking and community organizing, with an eye toward boosting grass-roots participation in government. John McCain’s campaign has not tapped into the Net as systematically or effectively, but many McCain supporters are using it among themselves.

People also are using the Net to strengthen or debunk political claims, engaging in levels of fact-checking that the traditional press was unable or unwilling to do.

Currently, even sitting politicians with the best of intentions find it necessary to spend an inordinate amount of time fundraising rather than governing. This election accelerates the trend to something else: People are using the Net for governance in ways that have barely been noticed.

New York and San Francisco are experimenting with telephone customer service systems that soon will be complemented by Net-based systems. Using the Internet, people will be able to navigate through local government to get things done — the ultimate in pothole politics.

Another emerging area of grass-roots, networked democracy involves transparency and accountability. The idea is that if we all see how the sausage is made, it will facilitate reform throughout the country.

A lot of accountability data are already available to the public — but in forms that limit their use and accessibility. For instance, there are loads of information about lobbyist contributions to congressmen and what they presumably get in return, such as sweetheart contracts.

The Sunlight Foundation is harnessing a network of organizations to build online tools so anyone can examine the data. For example, MAPLight.org focuses on the connection between money and politics, and the Center for Media and Democracy runs Congresspedia.org, which is basically a Wikipedia-like site for the U.S. Congress. (Full disclosure: I’m on the board of Sunlight.)

It’s still a struggle sometimes getting the sun to shine in on Capitol Hill. Online access to Senate election data is being obstructed by Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.), but their efforts are being countered online by Pass223.com.

In the fullest expression of direct democracy, every citizen would vote on every piece of legislation; representative democracy was, until now, the best compromise. The new challenge is how to give many millions of citizens a voice in government without overwhelming the system.

There are two approaches, both of which rely on technology that is available but not yet fully exploited. In online democracy, people need verifiable identities, the online equivalent of a driver’s license. Today, one example is the “digital certificate,” which, if widely disseminated, could help positively identify people on the Net and minimize fraud.

Congressmen and Hill staffers tell me that messages from verified people in their districts carry far more weight than blind e-mails that possibly are mass-produced. In other words, communications from known constituents are read, but form e-mails may not be. That’s one step closer to networked democracy.

Another approach involves large-scale discussion boards where citizens with verified identities can discuss issues online. The challenge is sorting the wheat from the chaff, but a solution is to let citizens do the work by filtering up the best ideas. Pioneers in this sort of scheme include Slashdot.org, Digg.com, and even Amazon.com.

Such systems, in theory, need hundreds of millions of citizens. In practice, they would number far fewer. Most people, including myself, would rather not be bothered with politics. From my day job, I’d guess that the number of interested citizens would range from 1 percent to 10 percent of the population.

Universal access to such systems must overcome the “digital divide,” but I believe that could be solved by using mobile phones to almost universally plug citizens into the process.

However it is done, we’re on the verge of realizing the vision of democracy upon which America was formed, from the grass roots up. It’s time to recognize what’s happening and get serious about nurturing it.

Craig Newmark is the founder of and chief of customer service for Craigslist.

SUGGESTIONS FOR A NEW CALIFORNIAN CONSTITUTION

The following article calls for a constitutional convention to update the constitution of the state of California. This would be a worthwhile effort if the objective is to strengthen and reform the direct democratic institutions enshrined in the constitution rather than an opportunity for opponents to weaken them and try to trun back the clock on California's tradition of Initiative & Referendum. - Editor

It's time to rethink California's defective constitution

By Larry N. Gerston
Article Launched: 08/15/2008 01:31:57 AM PDT

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_10212366?nclick_check=1

The latest California state budget flap reminds us that our constitution no longer works. The governing process in California is broken - not temporarily disabled or momentarily off track, but broken - and the only way to fix it is with a constitutional convention.
For some time, people have sensed a system gone awry, and they've tinkered to make things function.

The Progressives brought "direct democracy" a century ago to take power away from interest groups, yet interest groups have come to dominate the initiative and referendum processes. The electorate made the Legislature a full-time body in 1966, so instead of avoiding big decisions for 90 days every other year, it avoids big decisions year-round.

Some people thought we could improve the quality of legislators by creating term limits in 1988, which has only given more power to bureaucrats and lobbyists. We've passed more than 500 adjustments since our constitution's adoption in 1879 (compared with 27 changes in the U.S. Constitution), but these piecemeal efforts have failed to make California more governable.

When you think of how California has changed, it's understandable. Massive transportation corridors have replaced wagon trails, huge water conduits have taken the place of individual wells, and towns have blended into urban behemoths sometimes more than 100 miles long. Education, once a privilege for the few, is required for all.

We need a constitutional convention to look at California with 21st century eyes. In attendance should be a large group of people, perhaps 200 or 300, who should create a comprehensive document for state governance, and then present it to the voters.

The stakeholders should include representatives from businesses, organized labor, farmers and environmentalists, taxpayer groups, civil libertarians, some elected officials, and yes, a few (not too many!) academics. The constitutional convention should hold hearings across the state for ideas.

Here are a few ideas that should be on the table:

• State finance. What kinds of taxes should be collected and for what purposes? Which interests should get tax breaks and why? How easy or hard should it be for citizens to determine their own taxation?

• Checks and balances. What's the appropriate threshold for passing legislation and responding to a governor's veto? (Hint: No governor has had a veto overturned in more than 30 years.)

• Organization. Now that legislative districts are organized by population, is it wiser to move to a unicameral or one-house Legislature with smaller districts?

• State/local relationships. What public policy areas should be assumed by the state, and which should be assumed by local governments? And how can we help the two levels work together?

• Direct democracy. What's a reasonable threshold for qualifying an initiative for the ballot? And should the Legislature consider the topic before it goes to voters?

There are many more issues to consider. The point is simply this: California's patchwork quilt of reforms has frayed beyond repair. Our elected officials may come to office with noble ideas, but the system discourages them from governing. The public suffers from their political impotence.

Organizing a constitutional convention will be costly and time-consuming. There will be conflict and finger wagging. But if we bring enough thoughtful people to the table, we should be able to create a vast improvement over the present product. Let the debates begin.


LARRY N. GERSTON teaches political science at San Jose State University. His "California Politics and Government: A Practical Approach" (with Terry Christensen) will be published in its 10th edition in January.

COLORADO: 18 ISSUES ON THE BALLOT - REFORM THE INITIATIVE PROCESS?

The following editorial points out that it can be confusing for voters if too many initiatives appear on the ballot and if the initiatives themselves are in fact proposed and implemented by corporate interests with ulterior motives. Unfortunately this causes some to believe that ballot initiatives are not an effective way to find consensus on political issues, especially when voters prefer not to wait in lines while each considers various issues or voters do not know enough about the issues to make educated decisions. In this case it does not mean that ballot initiatives are not an efficient way to interpret public opinion on important issues and that direct democracy should be discarded, but it does mean that the process and the requirements should be reformed and modified in order to decrease the influence of corporate interests, special interests, and those with sufficient funds to push an initiative through to the ballot. The system must be opened up to make it more accessable to the average citizen and allow grasssroots input into the initiative process by making the requirements less prohibitive to that sector, Since the system is currently plagued by individuals with special interests, the immediate cure should be more educational campaigns regarding the issues and more opportunities for public input and oversight. - Editor

Maybe We Need a Ballot Bailout

By Susan Greene
Denver Post Columnist
Source: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10572760

Ballots start arriving this week, and Colorado's are the longest in the country.

This year's 18 ballot issues raise questions about not only the policies they push but also the overuse of direct democracy itself. Initiatives are piling on as a way for special interests to confuse voters, Gov. Bill Ritter to tiptoe around lawmakers and political opponents to bleed each other dry.

Probably not what reformists had in mind when they launched citizen law-making in 1912 so Coloradans could have a voice when not being served by politicians.

Curious, then, that it's Ritter who's pushing this year's most contentious initiative — to end tax credits for oil and gas producers. The governor launched Amendment 58 without taking up the issue with the legislature controlled by his own party.

Many on both sides of the severance debate agree that something's missing in bypassing lawmakers.

"It's called leadership," says Rick Reiter, the consultant running the bid to defeat 58.

Reiter's own record is far from pure. He is the Donald Trump of Colorado's ballot-issue industry, managing at least $22 million in campaigns related to six of this year's measures.

He raised ire when, after helping education and environmental groups push the severance-tax proposal last year, he bailed out to pimp for the gas companies trying to defeat it.

Reiter sees "no contradiction" in his switch, nor in the fact that he helped unions pass state budget reforms in 2005 yet this year is paid to fight four union-backed measures. He goes so far as to insist he's "not opposing labor" and that his bid against Amendment 58 "has nothing to do with oil and gas" — the folks bankrolling the effort.

"Rick Reiter has either lost his moral compass or he never had one," says education activist Tony Lewis.

This year's biggest ballot bombast came after trust- funder union-buster Jonathan Coors floated three anti-labor ballot measures. Unions in turn qualified four of their own initiatives, including a timely one to prosecute fraudulent CEOs.

The result would be mutually assured destruction that would drain business and unions of money and manpower. So, despite opposition in their ranks, business groups unable to convince Coors to drop his right-to-work Amendment 47 are seeking to raise millions to defeat it in exchange for labor nixing its four initiatives.

That, plainly put, is called ransom — with no regard for the meat of the measures.

"The initiative process is being used as a tool for political purposes rather than policy purposes," says Jennifer Drage Bowser of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Why care that this year's ballot approaches lengths rivaling "War and Peace"?

Because it could mean record lines on Election Day.

Because we as voters are being played as pawns.

And because the clutter is prompting some to argue that ballot initiatives — the very tools used to win suffrage in this country — are no longer a realistic way to make policy.

Perhaps the lowest profile of this year's issues is Referendum O, a plan to make it tougher to float ballot initiatives that mess with the state constitution. Ironically, the measure was referred by House speaker Andrew Romanoff and other lawmakers who themselves are pushing Amendment 59, asking voters to change the constitution by removing language injected by two other voter-approved initiatives.

Eyes wide open, Colorado. We'll need to read the fine print carefully.

Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-1989 or greene@denverpost.com.

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Editor's note: We received the following insightful comments from a Colorado citizen in response to this post:

Evan Ravitz has left a new comment on your post "COLORADO: 18 ISSUES ON THE BALLOT - REFORM THE INI...":

Colorado's Referendum O should fail, because it allows the legislature to overturn a statutory (not an amendment) initiative with a 2/3 vote or, after 5 years, a majority vote of the legislature. Since a non-representative legislature is the whole reason for ballot initiatives, why allow this?

Here are some reforms that are really needed:

Voters on ballot initiatives need what legislators get: public hearings, expert testimony, amendments, reports, etc. The best project for such deliberative process is the National Initiative for Democracy, led by former Sen. Mike Gravel: http://vote.org/. Also http://healthydemocracyoregon.org/ and http://cirwa.org/

In Switzerland, petitions are left at government offices and stores for people to read and sign at leisure, so there are less aggressive petitioners and you can save your Mace. ;) The Swiss vote on initiatives 4-6 times a year so there's never too many on one ballot.

Legislators have never tried to improve the ballot initiative process, but often try to make it even harder. They'd rather have absolute power!

In Switzerland, representatives are humbler, after centuries of local and cantonal (state) ballot initiatives, and national initiatives since 1891. They call their system "co-determination." This works well for couples, too!

ARIZONA: INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM UNDER THREAT?

Prop. 105: Tax relief or end of initiatives?

by Matthew Benson - Sept. 21, 2008 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic
Source: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2008/09/21/20080921majorityrule0921.html

Proposition 105 is just one sentence. Seventy-one words about Arizona's ballot-initiative process.

But uncertainty abounds within the relatively few words of the seemingly simple initiative. Would it effectively kill all citizens initiatives or just make it more difficult to pass a few dealing with tax increases?

Prop. 105's hazy implications have sparked a war of words between those who see it as a common-sense way to limit tax increases and critics who say it represents no less than an assault on Arizona's initiative process and tradition of direct democracy. The claims and counter-claims flying on both sides could hardly be more charged leading up to the Nov. 4 general election.


Essentially, Prop. 105 would amend the Arizona Constitution by specifying that a simple majority vote at the polls would no longer be sufficient for any future citizens initiative to raise taxes and fees or mandate government or other spending. Such measures would require approval by a majority of all registered voters, including those not participating in the election at all.

Arizona Education Association President John Wright said Prop. 105 "initiates an attack on the very act of voting."

Leading Prop. 105 backer Jason LeVecke said opponents' real fear is the loss of a ballot process often used to skirt a tax-averse Arizona Legislature. Without initiative reform, he warned, it's only a matter of time before special interests come to voters with a proposal to increase taxes.

"We will be bankrupt if we continue to tax and spend," said LeVecke, who owns a series of Carl's Jr. and Pizza Patron fast-food franchises. "This is a dangerous scenario for the future of Arizona."


Majority rules

Also known as the Majority Rule - Let the People Decide Act, Prop. 105 would redefine what constitutes victory at the polls. That much is clear.

If approved by voters, the measure would require that any future initiative that "raises a tax, fee or other revenue, or mandates a spending obligation" receive for passage the approval of not just a majority of ballots cast but a majority of all registered voters. Non-voters essentially would be counted as "no" votes under this scenario, significantly raising the bar for victory.

Roughly one in three registered voters sits out Election Day in Arizona. Since 1978, voter turnout has exceeded 70 percent five times and reached 80 percent just once.

Even in a year with exceptional voter turnout, say 75 percent, an initiative affected by Prop. 105 would have to claim support from 68 percent of the ballots cast to be approved. If turnout were lower, which is more typical, the percentage of votes needed for approval could climb to 80 or higher.

For evidence, look no further than 2006. That year, Arizona voters agreed to hike the state's tobacco tax and devote the revenue to early-childhood health and other programs.

The measure, Prop. 203, passed with a margin of victory of nearly 6.5 percentage points, a cushion of more than 95,000 votes cast statewide. But it would have come up nearly 500,000 votes short had it been proposed under the stricter rules envisioned by Prop. 105.

"The initiative process is dead if this goes through," said John Spears, a Mesa Republican and retiree who told The Arizona Republic he sees initiatives as "a very strong check and balance against our Legislature - Republicans and Democrats."

But LeVecke is mindful of the impact that even an innocuous-sounding citizens initiative can have on private business. He argues that tax increases should have to pass a higher threshold at the polls - similar to the supermajority, two-thirds vote they must receive for passage at the Arizona Legislature.

"We must right this course and be certain these special interests don't hijack our state," LeVecke said.

Mystery surrounds much of the rest of Prop. 105.


'Ambiguous' language

Opponents wonder whether the measure would apply not only to statewide initiatives but also to local citizen-led initiatives.

The No on Prop. 105 Committee, led by Wright, of the Arizona Education Association, has been stoking those fears, while LeVecke and his representatives insist they have no interest in regulating local initiatives.

The nonpartisan Arizona Legislative Council, a research wing of the Legislature, has issued a preliminary opinion that Prop. 105 applies only to statewide initiatives, though Executive Director Mike Braun concedes that its ballot language "is ambiguous."

A second major dispute centers on how broadly Prop. 105 would be interpreted. Supporters say it would do just what it says: hold to a higher standard of voter approval any initiative that would raise taxes or fees or mandate state spending. Ballot measures that require state funding for a specified program are blamed by critics for tying legislators' hands even as the state faces growing budget shortfalls.

Over the past decade, Arizona voters have approved a handful of initiatives increasing taxes or mandating spending, including three measures in 2006. Kevin McCarthy sees Prop. 105 as a means to help slow that tide.

"Our Constitution never contemplated this level of citizen initiatives with regard to public finance," said McCarthy, executive director of the Arizona Tax Research Association, which has endorsed Prop. 105. "Does it mean (Prop. 105) would stop all initiatives? I can't fathom it would do that."

Opponents aren't so sure.

They note that nearly every initiative has a state cost associated with its implementation, especially those that require resources for enforcement. Would Prop. 105 apply to an initiative toughening regulations against illegal immigration? Or banning the use of cellular phones behind the wheel?

While Prop. 105 supporters call the issue little more than a red herring employed by opponents to scare voters, the question remains in dispute. Braun said the Legislative Council hasn't researched it and likely won't unless Prop. 105 is approved in November.

Most likely, he said, the full extent of the initiative won't be known until there are lawsuits that throw the issue into the courts.

Said Braun: "Really, it'll come down to what five live (Arizona) Supreme Court justices decide." And that won't come until after the election.

______________________________________________________________

Editors note: We received the following insightful comment from an Arizona citizen in response to this post:

Goldwater has left a new comment on your post "ARIZONA: INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM UNDER THREAT?":

Prop 105 is simple--it counts people who don't vote and that is just wrong. Vote No on 105. Join the campaign against this unAmerican proposal by going to http://thevotersofaz.com/

THEORETICAL MUSINGS ON PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

(What could there possibly be) Beyond Democracy?

text courtesy of special agent Rolf Nadir
Source: http://www.gnn.tv/threads/480/_What_could_there_possibly_be_Beyond_Democracy

Nowadays, “democracy” rules the world. Communism has fallen, elections are happening more and more in those poor underdeveloped third world nations you see on television, and world leaders are meeting to plan the “global community” that we hear so much about. So why isn’t everybody happy, finally? For that matter—why do less than half of the eligible voters in the United States, the world’s flagship democracy, even bother to vote at all?

Could it be that “democracy,” long the catch-word of every revolution and resistance, is simply not democratic enough? What could be more democratic?

Every little child can grow up to be President.

No they can’t. Being president means holding a hierarchical position of power, just like being a billionaire: for every one president, there have to be millions of people with less power. And just as it is for billionaires, it is for presidents: it’s not any coincidence that the two types tend to rub shoulders, since they both come from a privileged world off limits to the rest of us. Our economy isn’t democratic, either, you know: resources are distributed in absurdly unequal proportions, and you certainly do have to start with resources to become President, or even to get your hands on more resources.

Even if it was true that anyone could grow up to be President, that wouldn’t help the millions of us who inevitably don’t, who must still live in the shadow of that power. This is an intrinsic structural difficulty in representative democracy, and it occurs on the local level as much as at the top. For example: the town council, consisting of professional politicians, can meet, discuss municipal affairs, and pass ordinances all day, without consulting the citizens of the town, who have to be at work; when one of those ordinances inconveniences or angers some of the citizens, they have to go to great lengths to use their free time to contest it, and then they’re gone again the next time the town council meets. The citizens can elect a different town council from the available pool of politicians and would-be politicians, but the interests and powers of the class of politicians as a whole will still be in conflict with their own—and anyway, party loyalties and similar superstitions usually prevent them from taking even this step.

If there was no President, our “democracy” would still be less than democratic. Corruption, privilege, and hierarchy aside, our system purports to operate by majority rule, with the rights of the minorities protected by a system of checks and balances—and this method of government has inherent flaws of its own.

The tyranny of the majority

If you ever happened to end up in a vastly outnumbered minority group, and the majority voted that you must give up something as necessary to your life as water and air, would you comply? When it comes down to it, does anyone really believe in recognizing the authority of a group simply because they outnumber everyone else? We accept majority rule because we do not believe it will threaten us—and those it does threaten are already silenced before we can hear their misgivings.

No “average citizen” considers himself threatened by majority rule, because each one thinks of himself as having the power and righteous “moral authority” of the majority: if not in fact (by being so-called “normal” or “moderate”), then in theory, because his ideas are “right” (that is, he believes that everyone would be convinced of the truth of his arguments, if only they would listen sincerely). Majority-rule democracy has always rested on the conviction that if all the facts were clear, everyone could be made to see that there is only one right course of action—without this belief, it amounts to nothing more than the dictatorship of the herd. But such is not always the case—even if “the facts” could be made equally clear to everyone, which is obviously impossible, some things simply can’t be agreed upon, for there is more than one truth. We need a democracy that takes these situations into account, in which we are free from the mob rule of the majority as well as the ascendancy of the privileged class. . .

“The Rule of Law”

. . .and the protection afforded by the “checks and balances” of our legal institution is not sufficient to establish it. The “rule of just and equal law,” as fetishized today by those whose interests it protects (the stockbrokers and landlords, for example), does not protect anyone from chaos or injustice; it simply creates another arena of specialization, in which the power of our communities is ceded to the jurisdiction of expensive lawyers and pompous judges. The rights of the minorities are the very last thing to be protected by these checks and balances, since power is already reserved for those with the privilege to seize it, and then for the lumpen majority after them. Under these conditions, a minority group is only able to use the courts to obtain its rights when it is able to bring sufficient force upon them in the form of financial clout, guileful rhetoric, etc.

There is no way to establish justice in a society through the mere drawing up and enforcement of laws: such laws can only institutionalize what is already the rule in that society. Common sense and compassion are always preferable to adherence to a strict and antiquated table of law, anyway, and where the law is the private province of a curator elite, these inevitably end up in conflict; what we really need is a social system which fosters such qualities in its members, and rewards them in practice. To create such a thing, we must leave representative “democracy” for fully participatory democracy.

It’s no coincidence “freedom” is not on the ballot.

Freedom is not a condition—it is something closer to a sensation. It’s not a concept to pledge allegiance to, a cause to serve, or a standard to march under; it is an experience you must live every day, or else it will escape you. It is not freedom in action when the flags are flying and the bombs are dropping to “make the world safe for democracy,” no matter what color the flags are (even black!); freedom cannot be caught and held in any state system or philosophical doctrine, and it certainly cannot be enforced or “given” to others—the most you can hope is to free others from forces preventing them from finding it themselves. It appears in fragile moments: in the make-believe of young children, the cooperation of friends on a camping trip, the workers who refuse to follow the union’s orders and instead organize their own strike without leaders. If we are to be real freedom fighters, we must begin by pledging ourselves to chase and cherish these moments and seek to expand them, rather than getting caught up in serving some party or ideology.

Real freedom cannot be held on a voting ballot. Freedom doesn’t mean simply being able to choose between options—it means actively participating in shaping the options in the first place, creating and re-creating the environments in which options exist. Without this, we have nothing, for given the same options in the same situations over and over, we’ll always make the same pre-determined decisions. If the context is out of our hands, so is the choice itself. And when it comes to taking power over the circumstances of our lives, no one can “represent” us—it’s something we have to do ourselves.

“Look, a ballot box—democracy!!”

If the freedom so many generations have fought and died for is best exemplified by a man in a voting booth, who checks a box on the ballot before returning to work in an environment no more under his control than it was an hour before, then the heritage our emancipating forefathers and suffragette grandmothers have left us is nothing but a sham substitute for the true liberty they lusted after.

For a better illustration of real freedom in action, look at the musician in the act of improvising with her companions: in joyous, seemingly effortless cooperation, they actively create the sonic and emotional environment in which they exist, participating thus in the transformation of the world which in turn transforms them. Take this model and extend it to every one of our interactions with each other, and you would have something qualitatively different from our present system: a harmony in human relationships and activity, a real democracy. To get there, we have to dispense with voting as the archetypal expression of freedom and participation.

Representative democracy is a contradiction in terms.

No one can represent your power and interests for you—you can only have power by acting, and you can only know what your interests are by being involved. Politicians have made careers out of claiming to represent others, as if freedom and political power could be held by proxy. Now, inevitably, they have become a priest caste that answers only to itself—as politician classes have always been, and will always be.

Voting is an expression of our powerlessness: it is an admission that we can only approach the resources and capabilities of our own society through the mediation of that priest caste. When we let them prefabricate our options for us, we relinquish control of our communities to these politicians in the same way that we leave technology to scientists, health to doctors, living environments to city planners and private real estate developers; we end up living in a world that is alien to us, even though our labor has built it, for we have acted like sleepwalkers hypnotized by the monopoly our leaders and specialists hold on setting the possibilities.

The fact is we don’t have to simply choose between presidential candidates, soft drink brands, competing activist organizations, television shows, news magazines, political ideologies. We can make our own decisions as individuals and communities, we can make our own delicious beverages and action coalitions and magazines and entertainment, we can create our own individual approaches to life that leave our unique perspectives intact. Here’s how.

What are the democratic alternatives to democracy?

Consensus

Radically participatory democracy, also known as consensus democracy, is already well-known and practiced across the globe, from indigenous communities in Latin America to postmodern political action cells (“affinity groups”) in the United States and organic farming cooperatives in Australia. In contrast to representative democracy, consensus democracy is direct democracy: the participants get to share in the decision-making process on a daily basis, and through decentralization of knowledge and authority they are able to exercise real control over their daily lives. Unlike majority-rule democracy, consensus democracy values the needs and concerns of each individual equally; if one person is unhappy with a resolution, then it is everyone’s responsibility to find a new solution that is acceptable to all. Consensus democracy does not demand that any person accept the power of others over her life, though it does require that everybody be willing to consider the needs of everyone else; thus what it loses in efficiency, it gains tenfold in both freedom and goodwill. Consensus democracy does not ask that people follow a leader or standardize themselves under some common cause; rather, its aim is to integrate all into a working whole while allowing each to retain her own goals and ways of doing things.

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CALIFORNIA: CITIZEN'S MANAGED GROWTH INITIATIVE

The example in the following article from Grass Valley, California illustrates how direct democracy can have a huge impact by empowering voters to make their own decisions about the future direction of the communities in which they live. - Editor


Democracy, Managed Growth & You: Taking Responsibility for Grass Valley’s Future

Thursday, August 21, 2008
Source: http://www.theunion.com/article/20080821/OPINION/2883/1056/SPORTS&parentprofile=-1

The citizens’ “Managed Growth Initiative” requires the City to follow its General Plan’s vision of how Grass Valley should grow. The Initiative and its proposals reflect a deeply democratic process. Abraham Lincoln eloquently propounded the democratic ideal at stake here: We are a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Correspondingly, California’s Constitution forthrightly declares: “All political power is inherent in the people.” [1] And: “The people have the right to instruct their representatives.”[2]

Requiring voter approval for changes to fundamental, constitutional guidance is common: amendments to both California’s Constitution and Grass Valley’s Charter must be approved by the electorate.[3] Significantly, California courts consider a general plan a community’s “constitution for future development,”[4] thereby specifying the relationship between a plan and zoning ordinances to implement it.

Similarly, the “Managed Growth Initiative” incorporates the current General Plan’s core – the Land Use Element and Map – into law, and requires the City’s zoning to be consistent with it. This is normal for un-chartered towns.[5] Further, amendments to that core (just six over the last nine years[6]) must be approved by Grass Valley’s voters.

Council-members find this awkward. At a May 27 presentation of the Initiative to the City, Councilman Miller opined: “The reason we have representative government, …is because the people elect representatives who share the same values and visions that they do, and so that’s why we sit up here, that’s why people place trust in us[7] – so you’re, basically, in this arena of City government, you want to make it a pure democracy, and you want it – rather – eliminate the representative government portion of it.”[8]

On the contrary, the American experiment relies on both representative and direct democracy to guide it. For example, in 1911, Republican Progressives introduced a swath of Constitutional Amendments consolidating popular sovereignty in reaction to the Railroads’ powerful and corrosive stranglehold on California’s representative democracy. Results included procedures of initiative, referendum and recall, permitting citizens to, among other things, directly propose and challenge legislative actions.[9] This provides an enduring corrective to concentrations of power, profits, and patronage that would corrupt Lincoln’s democratic ideal.

Why the “Managed Growth Initiative”? The proponents’ attorney replied to the city council, explaining: “An interesting aspect of [unchecked] representative government [permits] a handful of those who have the vast economic resources or political power, [to] influence those who are sitting in the positions where you are…. California expressly reserves the right of the voters to correct those types of abuses of power. That is what this initiative makes sure will happen with regard to the future of this city, that…changes to its general plan reflect the values of the people, not…of five people.”[10]

Importantly, Grass Valley’s Charter recognizes that: “The legislative power of the City of Grass Valley shall be vested in the people through the initiative and referendum and the council.”[11] In keeping with California’s Constitutional requirement, the City’s Charter explicitly states: “There are hereby reserved to the electors of the city the powers of the initiative and referendum and of the recall of municipal elective officers.”[12]

Although citizens can express their displeasure with elected officials by voting them out, four years can be a long wait. Furthermore, while recall is a valuable corrective, it demands huge energy and is very disruptive. Far simpler and more efficient is to craft clear rules that direct elected officials toward the community’s publicly established goals. Fundamental rules intended to express a community’s central values and aspirations are too important to be left to officials’ sole discretion or to their “flexible”[13] interpretation.

Yet, for several years the City has flirted with, even encouraged,[14] huge residential projects in the Special Development Areas that vastly exceed the growth anticipated by the General Plan.[15] Also, the City has consistently resisted wide-spread evidence – from public meetings[16] and polls[17] – showing that its citizens do not want rapid growth and big projects. Perversely, it ignores its -own study’s conclusion that the General Plan’s planned growth is more fiscally sound and sustainable than big developers’ proposals.[18] Self-interestedly, it opposes any attempt – even the Mayor’s developer-supported initiative[19] – to constrain its unfettered discretion to change or reinterpret the General Plan.

Clearly, representative stewardship in Grass Valley needs citizen oversight.[20]

The “Managed Growth Initiative” is simple and transparent. By incorporating the General Plan’s core into law, the City becomes legally bound to follow it. While the City will still develop and propose amendments, a generation of ballot-box scrutiny ensures that Grass Valley’s land-use governance really is of, by, and for the people: its citizens.

Howie Muir
Western Nevada County

NEVADA: FEW CITIZEN INITIATIVES MAKE IT TO BALLOT

Few statewide ballot measures face Nevada voters

By SANDRA CHEREB Associated Press Writer
Article Launched: 09/20/2008 12:03:47 AM PDT

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_10516193

RENO, Nev.—Nevada voters will decide only a handful of ballot measures in November after what started out as a dizzying scramble of competing initiatives was reduced by court challenges or behind-the-scenes compromise.

Of the four statewide questions remaining, one deals with eminent domain; two involve tweaking tax law oversight; and a third would remove from the Nevada Constitution a six-month residency rule for voter eligibility—a requirement the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional more than three decades ago.

The bigger, still-simmering issue involves what won't be on the ballot—a dozen or so citizen initiatives that were either withdrawn by their backers or scrapped by the courts for failing to meet tougher new qualifying requirements adopted by the 2005 Legislature.

Legal challenges over Nevada's revamped petition procedures continue and ramifications for this year's ballot remain uncertain. But with time running out before the November election it's unlikely voters will see any of the previously tossed measures on the ballot.

Advocates of the disqualified measures and political observers say they are likely to re-emerge in future elections.

First, a snapshot of what voters will be asked to decide:

— Question 1: Amends the Nevada Constitution to remove an unconstitutional requirement that a person must reside in Nevada for six months before being eligible to vote. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 and later years ruled that lengthy residency requirements for voter registration were unconstitutional. State law already imposes a less restrictive, 30-day residency requirement, which has been deemed reasonable by courts.

— Question 2: A constitutional amendment restricting government use of eminent domain to acquire private property for public use. Voters in 2006 passed the measure 63 percent to 37 percent. It needs final voter approval in November to become part of the Nevada Constitution. But after critics feared it would cripple local governments and public works projects, a compromise law that took effect in October, along with another proposed companion constitutional amendment, was passed by the 2007 Legislature. Lawmakers in 2009 must pass the amendment again before it goes to a public vote in 2010 for final action. It would supersede Question 2.

— Question 3: A constitutional amendment approved by lawmakers in 2005 and 2007 setting parameters that must be satisfied before the Legislature can grant property, sales or use tax exemptions. It requires a finding of specific social or economic benefits and mandates that exemptions have an expiration date.

— Question 4: Amends the state Sales and Use Tax Act of 1955 by authorizing the Legislature to amend or repeal provisions to comply with federal law or interstate agreements. Any tax increase still would require voter approval.

Voters in Nevada's two most populous counties, Clark and Washoe, also will vote on an advisory question backed by the Nevada State Education Association and some Las Vegas casino giants to increase hotel room taxes in those counties by up to 3 percent initially to fund public schools. The cooperative effort was forged in a deal that included teachers dropping an earlier initiative that called for a 44 percent increase in casino taxes.

As of this week, voters were not going to be asked to decide other contentious issues, such as various measures taxing casinos, funding education and capping property taxes. The property tax cap pushed by former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle has failed three times to qualify for the ballot. Though Angle is pursuing an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court, Chief Justice Mark Gibbons questioned whether any legal remedy is available, since Nevada's secretary of state already has told local election officials to remove the measure from November ballots.

Supporters of the failed initiatives point to changes made by the 2005 Legislature that they say effectively hog-ties citizen petitions.

Kermitt Waters, a Las Vegas attorney and supporter of several measures removed from the Nov. 4 ballot, on Thursday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, arguing the state law that limits initiatives to one subject and requires a 200-word explanation is unconstitutional.
"The fact they knocked them all off (the ballot) makes our case that much more stronger," Waters said.

Political observers are split over whether the initiative requirements are for the better or worse.

Supporters argue the requirements will bring simplicity and clarity to a process prone to "hijacking" by special interests, and point to the 2004 election as an example of why reforms were needed.

In that election, a group tied to the Nevada Trial Lawyers Association backed two measures that purported to roll back insurance rates but instead sought to prohibit limiting damage awards or attorneys fees in malpractice cases. Both failed.

Fred Lokken, political science professor at Truckee Meadows Community College, said while initiative backers are generally "well intended," the process is "really subject to abuse."

The only way to preserve the opportunity for citizens to actively push law changes is to "come up with some logical ways to sort of clean it up ... and tighten the language so that everyone can understand it," he said.

Others worry of unintended consequences.

"It's an effort to restrict this aspect of direct democracy," said Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. "I say you tread there at your own peril.

"We're in this odd kind of anti-initiative backlash, but it's coming from within government, which I think is very dangerous.

"I don't disagree that the initiative process has been hijacked by special-interest groups," he added. "But you're still taking away the right of voters to review that hijacking."

MINNESOTA: CAMPAIGN FOR CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT HEATS UP

Direct democracy in the form of initiative & referendum has brought a vote on a constitutional amendment to the ballot in Minnesota. The amendment would raise the state sales tax slightly to fund both the arts and fish and game conservation efforts. The unlikely alliance between hunters and artists that the effort to bring the amendment to the ballot has brought about shows how when people are given legislative power through direct democracy they are able to find common ground in order to benefit all members of society. - Editor

Campaign for constitutional amendment gears up

by Tom Robertson, Minnesota Public Radio
September 22, 2008
Source: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/09/15/legacyact/


When Minnesotans head to the polls in November, they'll be asked to vote on a constitutional amendment that would raise the state sales tax by three-eighths of one percent. If approved, the measure would raise millions of dollars for environmental protection and the arts.

Supporters include an unlikely pairing of hunting and fishing groups with organizations that support arts and culture. Opponents say the state can't afford another tax hike.

Bemidji, Minn. — Thousands of people walk through the Bemidji Community Arts Center each year. The art gallery is popular with locals, and it brings lots of tourist dollars into town.

The organization relies heavily on donations and state-funded grants to stay afloat. Center director Lori Forshee-Donnay says funding the facility can be a nail-biter each year. She says passing the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment will help.

"There's more and more organizations and artists looking for a shrinking pool of money, and whenever there's a deficit, these are the areas that get cut first," said Forshee-Donnay. "So it will be really nice to be able to have a stable, long term source of funding."

If approved, the constitutional amendment could raise nearly $300 million a year. Eighty percent would go toward things like clean water initiatives, wildlife habitat restoration and land conservation efforts. The rest would help fund groups like the Region 2 Arts Council in northwest Minnesota.

Region 2 director Teri Widman says in 2003, state funding for the arts council was cut 32 percent.

She says that hurt their ability to provide music and arts programming grants to school districts. Widman says the council's mission is even more critical now that many schools are slashing their arts budgets.

Widman says raising the sales tax is a good way to meet needs that most Minnesotans agree are important.

"It's only three-eighths of one percent, which means that the average family of four would pay less than $5 a month to invest in their clean water, conserving the wildlife habitats, the outdoors, and providing arts funding," said Widman. "We're talking about future generations. It's a very small amount of money to invest in the future."

The proposed amendment that voters will see in November has been years in the making, and arts weren't part of the mix until now. The initiative was started mostly by groups supporting hunting and fishing.

Scott Anderson, northwest regional director for Ducks Unlimited, says broadening the coalition to include the arts was a smart political move.

"We've been fighting this battle to get it out for a vote for many years," said Anderson. "The organizations fighting for it just had to realize that there's give and take with it. If we absolutely say the arts and culture shouldn't be a part of it, we might not even be this far yet."

Getting the amendment question on the ballot is one thing. Rallying voter support may be a bigger challenge.

A Minnesota Public Radio News/Humphrey Institute poll last month, showed 72 percent of respondents were against raising the sales tax.

Terry Stone lives in International Falls, where he runs a retail electronics business. Stone says Minnesota already has one of the highest sales tax rates in the country.

He worries a hike would hurt his business, and says now is an especially bad time to do it.

"It couldn't be worse," Stone said. "We have a soggy economy and we have extreme budgetary issues. Legislators are saying about a billion dollar deficit just for starters in the next session. To start throwing dedicated, locked in, 25-year-long funding for anything strikes me as bad government."

Some studies show voters tend to approve tax increase questions at about a 50-50 rate, but those that promote things like clean water and conservation tend to do better, says Pat Donnay, a political science professor at Bemidji State University. He's married to the director of the Bemidji Community Arts Center.

Donnay says passage of the amendment may be more difficult because if voters leave the question blank, the ballot is counted as a no vote.

He says it's likely many voters aren't familiar with the issue yet. They'll be big targets of the special interest groups either for or against the measure. He says that's one of the downsides of posing referendum questions to voters.

"People like to think it's direct democracy, but it really plays to the interest groups in much the same way, if not more so, than representative democracy," said Donnay. "It's all about who's got the money to get the airwaves and the billboards. That's what it will become between now and election day, is a battle between the various interests to get their message out."

Supporters of the amendment include a coalition of about 200 organizations. They're funding a multi-million dollar advertising campaign promoting the measure.

Groups like the Taxpayers League of Minnesota and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce have mounted their own campaigns to defeat the amendment.

STANDING UP TO THE MADNESS, A SPEECH BY AMY GOODMAN

In April this editor had the pleasure of seeing Amy Goodman speak at Seattle's Green Festival. Promoting 'Standing Up to the Madness', her latest book co-authored by her brother David, Goodman told the stories of ordinary citizens that acted to profoundly change our society. The following clip provokes people to get involved in "standing up to the madness" and participating, instead of passively allowing the oligarchy to control our daily lives. - Editor



Source link: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QMfa-qhb0ug

CALIFORNIA: ONLINE PROPOSITIONS

Propositions to the people, online

9:47 AM, September 17, 2008
Source:http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/09/it-is-a-politic.html

It's is a political truism that big donors and special interests (hello, both sides of Indian gambling Propositions 94-97!) drive California's ballot initiative process. But now, taking a Web page from social networking sites like Facebook and Linkedin, Republican political consultant Mike Madrid has launched a site he says will make it easier for the masses to reclaim direct democracy.

The site, Californiapropositions.org , lets people to organize online by forming their own issue and campaign groups and find like-minded groups, just as they do on other social networking sites. But biggest benefits, Madrid says, will be in the two parts of the proposition process that cost the most -- raising cash and getting valid signatures.

An initiative requires 433,971 signatures to qualify for the ballot. (Or 694,354, if it’s a constitutional amendment.) It costs about $2 million to hire specially trained signature gatherers, the ones who annoy you as you enter Rite Aid, trying to remember which prescription you need to get refilled. But Madrid’s site gets around all that by allowing anyone who wants to download and print out a petition, gather a handful of signatures and send the petition in.

Because they are free from finance limits, past initiative campaigns have usually relied on big gifts to run their operations, which means trade groups, unions and rich people get great political clout over how initiatives are written. Madrid also says the site will make it easier to reach thousands of small donors who can give $10 or $20, doing what the Barack Obama campaign has done. He notes that the campaign for a high-speed rail line -- not exactly the sexiest political issue -- has nearly 38,000 members on Facebook.

“I’m a huge proponent of the proposition-industrial complex,” he says. “Most people think it’s a cancer on the body politic. I think it does was it was designed to do, only it hasn’t been as accessible to the masses as it was originally intended.” The main downside of his approach, he predicts: It will make recall campaigns of politicians even more frequent.

-- Jordan Rau

LEGISLATORS' NOD TO CITIZEN INITIATIVES MAY BE TIED TO REELECTION HOPES

As the following article points out, the empowerment of the people through direct democracy, as is currently manifested in the use of initiative & referendum in 24 states of the U.S., increases the level of political activism and sense of civic duty, as well as increasing voter turnout. This also has the effect of holding elected officials more accountable to the will of the people. - Editor


Legislators’ nod to citizen initiatives may be tied to re-election hopes

Source: http://news.ufl.edu/2008/09/24/citizen-initiatives/

Filed under Research, Politics on Wednesday, September 24, 2008.GAINESVILLE, Fla. —

Citizen-initiated measures, such as gay rights and physician-assisted suicide, are not a uniquely Western U.S. phenomenon as traditionally thought, but have their roots across a wide geographical area that includes the Deep South, a new University of Florida study finds.

“Our study challenges the dominant historical narrative of why citizen initiatives were adopted in some American states a century ago,” said Daniel Smith, a UF political science professor whose study appears in the current issue of American Political Science Review. “The phenomenon may bring to mind places like Oregon, California, Colorado and Washington — states with populist and progressive traditions — but we found that lawmakers in the West were no more likely than those from other states to accede broad powers to voters in this way.”

Smith, who collaborated on the study with Dustin Fridkin, a UF doctoral student in political science, said political considerations — the degree of competition between political parties in a state legislature, party organizational strength and the presence of a third party — are the strongest predictors of whether a legislature gave voters the power to make their own decisions through the initiative process.

In 1898 South Dakota voters became the first to approve a constitutional amendment granting residents the power to decide initiatives and by 1918 voters in 20 states had followed suit, he said.

Southern states were thought to be more apprehensive about the initiative process because of its potential to mobilize African Americans, but the facts do not bear this out, Smith said. The legislatures of Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi and Texas were among the early states to place referendums on the ballot-granting residents the opportunity to adopt direct democracy reforms, he said.

Minnesota and Wisconsin, two progressive states, have never implemented this form of direct democracy because voters ultimately did not approve it; and the supposed populist explanation does little to explain why Missouri adopted the initiative, Smith said, but not neighboring Kansas, a hotbed of populist sentiment a century ago.

“Lawmakers inherently don’t like the initiative process because it takes power away from them, so it raises the question of why they would give up their institutional authority in order to allow citizens to pass laws,” Smith said.

The study found that legislative competition between political parties played a key role in lawmakers’ decision to give citizens a direct role in shaping public policy. On average, the majority party’s surplus of seats was 22.5 percent among the 20 early state legislatures that referred the initiative process to the ballot compared with 26.7 percent for those state legislatures that did not, Smith said.

“A minority party might be willing to sell out the institutional powers of the legislature and allowing citizens to gain political power, in order to curry favor with the people and hopefully become the majority party,” he said. “And the majority party is put in the position of not wanting to be anti-populist.”

Also more receptive to citizen initiatives were states with weaker political parties — possibly because they achieved statehood later and had fewer established political traditions — and states with third parties, which further diluted majority power, he said.

In place in 24 states today, the initiative process is arguably the most important political institution available to citizens, but it has repercussions, Smith said. By allowing citizens to pass laws and constitutional amendments that can impinge upon the legislature’s ability to raise money, restrict certain taxes or direct types of expenditures, state legislatures become inherently weaker, he said.

“I think there are some aspects to it that are clearly troubling when you have votes taking place that are not fully informed and there’s no iterative decision-making — it’s a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote on a particular policy with no chance to amend it,” he said. “On the flip side, there are a lot of positive ‘educative effects’ about the initiative process.”

States with initiatives over time have higher turnout in midterm and presidential elections, drawing voters to ballot measures and presenting candidates with substantive issues that can help set the campaign agenda, Smith said.

“People who live in initiative states are more likely to talk about politics and contribute money to interest group,” he said. “It makes sense because they are more engaged in the process, which is something the Progressives argued in its favor back in the early 1900s.”