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These are troubling times for the world. We’re in a profound period of adjustment:
- From an industrial to an informational age;
- From many competing national economies to a shared global economy;
- From bipolar industrial-military competition to a single superpower.
In this country, care must be taken moving through the adjustments. We could lose everything if we make mistakes driven by uncritical reactions to popular myths. Such a mistake would be replacing representative government with decisions by plebiscite.
In the title to his thoughtful essay in last December's Atlantic Monthly, Robert D. Kaplan asks the profound question, "Was Democracy Just a Moment?" He argues convincingly that "democracy," as contemporary Western industrial countries understand it, is extremely fragile, depending on economically stable societies and politically stable governments reflecting those economies.
How, then, is democracy lost? Quoting de Tocqueville, Kaplan offers an answer: "Despotism 'is more particularly to be feared in democratic ages,' because it thrives on the obsession with self and one's own security equality fosters." The revered theory of individual enlightened self-interest lies at the bottom of the threat. The founders of the Republic knew it and responded to observations of Hobbes and others that institutions are necessary to protect the masses from the mob.
The authors of the Constitution, therefore, eschewed replacing the rather workable despotism of the 18th century British constitutional monarchy with any other form approaching direct democracy. In the backs of their minds resided the fear that a transitory majority could make many of us slaves in the twinkling of a passionate, yet not well thought-out, vote. Thus was born the American form of representative democracy, with its inefficient checks and balances designed to assure that no single person or narrow ideology could dominate government and, through it, society.
Peter Schrag, in his March Atlantic article, "California, Here We Come," points out that "government by plebiscite, which would have horrified the Founding Fathers, threatens to replace representative government." The immediate threat lies in the predominant role recently taken by exercise of the hallowed initiative and referendum, products of the early 20th century designed to rid California's legislative bodies of corruption by powerful special interests. Ironically, it’s the special interests that, more often than not, cleverly use the device today to impose their wills on the rest of us.
The trouble with "government by plebiscite," however, has less to do with who is using it than with its availability, so easily exercised, in the first place. Representative democracy and constitutional checks and balances are based on the concept that it’s not a great idea to rush into something as important as legislation without thinking it through and making sure that it makes good sense.
Next month, San Diegans again face a bewildering array of ballot propositions. Some, such as the Convention Center measure, may receive sufficient media attention to enlighten the electorate enough on the issues. But most voters will cast their ballots on other propositions about which they have no clue.
Naive proposals calling for even more "direct democracy," by using electronic or other means to expand the issues on which the public votes, are dangerous. A better idea is to find means to attract quality people to public office, permit them to run things and remove them, by recall or otherwise, if they don’t.
The former San Diego city attorney, John Witt now serves as special counsel with the law firm of Lounsbery Ferguson Altona & Peak.
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