The use of referendums to decide on societal issues

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While reading an article on the referendum in Costa Rica to approve CAFTA (TLC) I began to think a bit more about the degree to which open referendums should be used in a society.

Harvard economist Dani Rodrik, in favor of the referendum's use wrote:

Costa Rica is a long-standing democracy that rightly prides itself in its social arrangements and the quality of its polity. I do not know enough to have a strong view as to whether CAFTA is good or bad for this country. But I am happy that there is a referendum on the subject. Let the people decide.

Berkeley economist Brad DeLong wrote:

Here in California we have referendums. LOTS of referendums. It is not an inspiring sight. It is much better for voters to elect representatives who share their values, and for the representative to then study and think and so develop informed opinions on the issues.

I've always wanted technology to enable a more direct participation in a society's issues than most current democracies currently allow. With networked citizenry I felt that technology could lessen the influence of our representatives and enable the individual.

These two conflicting viewpoints underline the fundamental problem of this. The majority is often not well informed. The danger is that the majority can easily be polarized on an issue. Costa Rica's TLC vote is a good example. The trade agreement had generated a very polarized debate, easily the most controversial political event in recent history for Ticos. And I thought the campaign against the trade agreement more easily leveraged populist rallying because it could invoke fear (the trade agreement was compared to "sellling Costa Rica" to the USA). The arguments in favor of the agreement (generally sound economics) don't cater as well to fear mongering and populism.

So it was an example of where I thought that a mildly informed person would tend to vote differently than a rallied popular movement would and I happened to think the majority would have been wrong.

In this case what I considered to be the right vote won by a slim majority in a referendum, while it probably would have passed very easily if representatives were voting and not the direct referendum to the populace.

This essential challenge is something I've been daydreaming about fixing in my utopian daydream in which the citizens have more direct control of their society. I've though of having the ability to vote on an issue contingent on being able to demonstrate basic knowledge of the subject (e.g. being able to identify a country on a map before voting to invade it would be a nice little first step) but am beginning to think that the general population is too stupid to grand control to. Maybe representatives are the solution.

What do you think? Between voting for representatives and giving them the control of the decisions and having the public decide directly where do you fall?

I'm leaning toward having proportional representation in my utopian society and having more representatives per person than any current standard.

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There isn't anything wrong with having referendums. CA, as with a few other places, made it very easy to get issues on a state-wide refferendum and, IMO, that is a mistake.

When the process becomes to easy to use you get flooded with stupid/silly items on the referendums because anyone can push their pet project. Many of the items that end up on state-wide ballots should probably be on local ballots instead (What may be good policy for one locality may not be good for neighboring cities/towns).

I think a balance of representative government, binding and non-binding referendums can work very well as long as the issues put to a public referendum don't become trivial and overwhelm the voters.

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I'm definitely for representational government. I'd like it to be GOOD representational government, but I think that's easier to achieve than to get good government by giving that power directly to people.

Among other things, I think people would find it a chore, and that it would be easy to manipulate for that reason. The percentage of people who actually care and actually would think about it would be extremely low IMO compared to people who would be annoyed or arbitrary or manipulated or reactionary.

Plus I think there has to be some kind of accountability.

It's much more likely that people will really think about issues once every 2 or 4 years and vote in the people they tend to agree with. Even then I think there is far too little substance in how people make their decisions, in general.

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Representative government is the way to go, especially in a day when it is so easy to spin an argument. If the average joe only has an hour to devote to an issue and all his information is spun based on who can afford the most advertising, democracy suffers.

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Most major policy decisions require a lot of understanding and nuance if thay are to be reasonable...I think this even more after having had the opportunity intimately to watch them being made at state government level a while back.

While I am by no means convinced that they get made with sufficient knowledge and expertise at present, a legislative process does mean that at least a modicum of knowledge and balancing of competing solutions is part of the process.

I agree that this is something very unlikely to occur with referendums to any great extent.

I can see very local decisions, with very local consequences, reasonably occurring with referendums...like decisions about some local council matters.

In other words, what Sozobe said.

Historically in Oz referendums to change anything almost never get up.

The exception to this I can think of immediately is one in the 1960's, which (symbolically) removed a lot of legal discrimination against indigenous people.

It is, of course, possible that Oz is especially conservative in relation to change by referendums?

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dlowan wrote:

Historically in Oz referendums to change anything almost never get up.

The exception to this I can think of immediately is one in the 1960's, which (symbolically) removed a lot of legal discrimination against indigenous people.

It is, of course, possible that Oz is especially conservative in relation to change by referendums?

I just reviewed a few documents fairly quickly but it appears that getting an issue to referendum is NOT and easy process in Oz and passing it is just as hard.

Most sites reference that issues must pass through both legislative bodies, then get a double majority to pass and even then, it still requires the signature of the Executive before it becomes law.

In CA, as an example, an issue only needs some minor perfunctory administrative tasks by the State and then the supporters gather signatures. For a general law they only need signatures in number equeal to 5% of the number of people that voted in the previous gubernatorial election. That comes out to just over 400,000 signatures in most cases (with a population of ~36 million that's about 1% of the state's population.) . If they can gather that then it is a matter of a simple majority vote in the general election.

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fishin wrote:

dlowan wrote:
Historically in Oz referendums to change anything almost never get up.

The exception to this I can think of immediately is one in the 1960's, which (symbolically) removed a lot of legal discrimination against indigenous people.

It is, of course, possible that Oz is especially conservative in relation to change by referendums?

I just reviewed a few documents fairly quickly but it appears that getting an issue to referendum is NOT and easy process in Oz and passing it is just as hard.

Most sites reference that issues must pass through both legislative bodies, then get a double majority to pass and even then, it still requires the signature of the Executive before it becomes law.

In CA, as an example, an issue only needs some minor perfunctory administrative tasks by the State and then the supporters gather signatures. For a general law they only need signatures in number equeal to 5% of the number of people that voted in the previous gubernatorial election. That comes out to just over 400,000 signatures in most cases (with a population of ~36 million that's about 1% of the state's population.) . If they can gather that then it is a matter of a simple majority vote in the general election.

Yes...major differences.

But...what sort of stuff is considered appropriate in CA to go to referendum?

Is it open slather?

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Robert Gentel wrote:

What do you think? Between voting for representatives and giving them the control of the decisions and having the public decide directly where do you fall?

I like the theory of grass roots democracy very much. And some peoples, like the Swiss, have even managed to make it work in practice. Nevertheless, I don't trust grass roots democracy in practice, for two reasons: (1) before individuals vote, they have no incentive to inform themselves; (2) after individuals vote, get no feedback about the quality of their individual vote, nor rewards for voting smartly, nor punishments for voting badly.

My preferred solution (surpise, surprise) is two-pronged: (a) have a representative democracy, limited in scope to make collective decisions where citizens making their own individual decisions isn't practical. (b) decide every other issue by individual choice in markets. Markets have most of the features that make grass-roots democracy attractive, but do add feedback as well as incentives to act on it. (Biographical note: When I was between 20 and 25, it was argument (b) that turned me from a left-liberal Green into a libertarian.)

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In Germany, on Federal level, a referendum has constituionally the same weight as a vote:

Basic Law of Germany (constitution)

Quote:

Article 20 [...]
(2) All state authority is derived from the people. It shall be exercised by the people through elections and other votes and through specific legislative, executive, and judicial bodies.

However, the procedure of a referandum isn't regulated (yet - "Thomas' party' tried to get our constituion changed for such last year).

We've got referenda in all states on state as well as municipality level though.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

However, the procedure of a referandum isn't regulated (yet - "Thomas' party' tried to get our constituion changed for such last year).

Tragic proof that even my party can get it wrong sometimes. I'm not a fan of referenda.

Are you, by the way? You informed our foreign correspondents where and how we do referenda, but not what opinion you have of them.

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Convulsed with pain .... well, nearly ... I have to agree with you:
it doesn't work well even locally. Mostly, at least, and in my state.

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dlowan wrote:

fishin wrote:
dlowan wrote:
Historically in Oz referendums to change anything almost never get up.

The exception to this I can think of immediately is one in the 1960's, which (symbolically) removed a lot of legal discrimination against indigenous people.

It is, of course, possible that Oz is especially conservative in relation to change by referendums?

I just reviewed a few documents fairly quickly but it appears that getting an issue to referendum is NOT and easy process in Oz and passing it is just as hard.

Most sites reference that issues must pass through both legislative bodies, then get a double majority to pass and even then, it still requires the signature of the Executive before it becomes law.

In CA, as an example, an issue only needs some minor perfunctory administrative tasks by the State and then the supporters gather signatures. For a general law they only need signatures in number equeal to 5% of the number of people that voted in the previous gubernatorial election. That comes out to just over 400,000 signatures in most cases (with a population of ~36 million that's about 1% of the state's population.) . If they can gather that then it is a matter of a simple majority vote in the general election.

Yes...major differences.

But...what sort of stuff is considered appropriate in CA to go to referendum?

Is it open slather?

I'm not sure of their exact requirements. I know that in CA any law passed or rejected by the state legislature can be put up for referendum. IOW, if the legislature passe/rejectss a law the people can vote to over-ride them.

I know that here in MA the State Atty. General has to reveiw every referendum item and any that they determine to be unconstitutional can be rejected. It doesn't appear that CA has that step in their process.

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Thomas wrote:

My preferred solution (surpise, surprise) is two-pronged: (a) have a representative democracy, limited in scope to make collective decisions where citizens making their own individual decisions isn't practical. (b) decide every other issue by individual choice in markets. Markets have most of the features that make grass-roots democracy attractive, but do add feedback as well as incentives to act on it. (Biographical note: When I was between 20 and 25, it was argument (b) that turned me from a left-liberal Green into a libertarian.)

This is very close to my ideal solution (though in my particular utopian daydream the market is something very different from todays markets) but I'm still not willing to call myself a libertarian (if I had to pin it down it would be social liberal fiscal conservative).

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Maybe a study of ancient Athens might shed some light on direct Demos?

And its one of the reasons Madison was not for it.

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kuvasz wrote:

Maybe a study of ancient Athens might shed some light on direct Demos?

Right. The state that imposed a death sentence on Socrates for atheism.

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The problem with Democracy is that people are crass idiots.

A pure Democracy, where people could make blunt changes based on the current days hysteria, would be a disaster.

The current representational system protects us from the whims of the unruly mob

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fishin wrote:

dlowan wrote:

fishin wrote:
dlowan wrote:
Historically in Oz referendums to change anything almost never get up.

The exception to this I can think of immediately is one in the 1960's, which (symbolically) removed a lot of legal discrimination against indigenous people.

It is, of course, possible that Oz is especially conservative in relation to change by referendums?

I just reviewed a few documents fairly quickly but it appears that getting an issue to referendum is NOT and easy process in Oz and passing it is just as hard.

Most sites reference that issues must pass through both legislative bodies, then get a double majority to pass and even then, it still requires the signature of the Executive before it becomes law.

In CA, as an example, an issue only needs some minor perfunctory administrative tasks by the State and then the supporters gather signatures. For a general law they only need signatures in number equeal to 5% of the number of people that voted in the previous gubernatorial election. That comes out to just over 400,000 signatures in most cases (with a population of ~36 million that's about 1% of the state's population.) . If they can gather that then it is a matter of a simple majority vote in the general election.

Yes...major differences.

But...what sort of stuff is considered appropriate in CA to go to referendum?

Is it open slather?

I'm not sure of their exact requirements. I know that in CA any law passed or rejected by the state legislature can be put up for referendum. IOW, if the legislature passe/rejectss a law the people can vote to over-ride them.

I know that here in MA the State Atty. General has to reveiw every referendum item and any that they determine to be unconstitutional can be rejected. It doesn't appear that CA has that step in their process.

Fishin'...does this mean, for instance, do you know, that if someone was able to get a referendum passed saying that all people convicted of, say, sexual crimes against children, would henceforth be tortured to death in public that this would then become law?

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Not that particular example, because that would be a violation of the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In rather simplistic terms, referenda can only repeal laws or legislate by popular vote to the extent that they don't violate the state constitution in question, or the Constitution of the United States.

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Setanta wrote:

Not that particular example, because that would be a violation of the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In rather simplistic terms, referenda can only repeal laws or legislate by popular vote to the extent that they don't violate the state constitution in question, or the Constitution of the United States.

From what Fishin' said, that was made manifest in Massachusetts, but I was not sure what the CA position was.....(I am aware that people likely would/will take such things to court in CA, with such things being judged against the constitution in the end, I assume????....but I was asking what the rules actually say in CA).

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Well, i'm making no statements about the California constitution--but one needn't even necessarily take such matters to court in the traditional sense of appealing a decision. An interested party might seek an injunction to prevent a measure from going into effect which the party alleges is unconstitutional, and the State of California has no power to prevent a Federal Court from enjoining the implementation of a measure which has been challenged in that matter.

Anyone that interested in how this all works in the Fruit and Nut capital of the world, California, can use this state constitution search page for California[/b].

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The use of referendums to decide on societal issues

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