Government and Freedom
James L. Busey
[Reprinted from a pamphlet announcing the founding of
L.E.A.F.
(Land, Equality and Freedom) in 1974]
A peculiar feature of the political system of the United Stales
national government is its unresponsive rigidity in the face of public
clamor. Issues such as Watergate can go or for months or years without
political solution. On both sides of burning questions of the day,
proponents claim the support of public opinion, but there is no way to
find out, officially and once and for all, what that so-called "public
opinion" really is. For example, on the issue of busing school
children to achieve racial integration, advocates of conflicting
points of view can engage in a permanent screaming contest without
visible governmental attention to the debate. If the general public
does have a point of view about inflation, tax reform, export of food
supplies abroad, amnesty for draft evaders, automotive safety devices,
pollution controls, the Vietnam war of recent vintage, or a host of
other intensely argued controversies, there is no way, other than
indecisive private polling, whereby people can give direct voice to
their wishes.
For an opportunity to express their views officially, and hopefully
with some effect, voters must wait for elections, which are cemented
into a two-four-year schedule, and for which everyone must wait until
the constitutionally appointed time, meanwhile suffering the tensions
and uncertainties of continuous unresolved public debate.
Even elections do not tell us what the people think of great national
questions. The people vote on candidates, not questions, and it is
only rarely that elections provide a remote clue to public views on
subjects of public debate. Even constitutional amendments are approved
indirectly by state legislatures or conventions, and not directly by
the people -- and the device of special state conventions has only
been used once in our history, when the 21st Amendment repealed the
18th.
The problem is that the United States national government is still
locked into a pattern modeled after the 1776 British government of
George III, In place of the English monarch, we provided for an
indirectly elected president. We established fixed, scheduled
elections for the presidential electoral college and for the U.S.
House of Representatives (later adding the Senate, in 1913), and made
no further provision for the direct expression of public opinion.
Well-run parliamentary governments of today, which have evolved far
beyond the system of George III (which ours has not), can hold
unscheduled elections when public outcry creates parliamentary
instability, loss of support for the government, or general commotion
around the country. For example, in Canada an issue like Watergate
could not have lasted over one week without a call for new elections.
Within our separation-of-powers (or block-and-tackle) system, it may
be difficult to adapt ourselves to parlimentary practices, and even
these provide but an imperfect solution to the problem of accurately
gauging public opinion and acting upon it.
What is missing from our eighteenth-century style government, is
provision for some sort of national plebiscite or referendum whereby
great national questions could be resolved and acted upon, one way or
the other.
Initiative and referendum systems, which are presently available in
California, Colorado, and about a dozen other states, can be abused
and can encourage the placing on the ballot of a multiplicity of minor
or detailed questions, thus confusing the voter more than enlightening
the government regarding his or her wishes. However, it is possible to
build in certain protections against this eventuality by requiring a
high national percentage of signatures on initiative petitions, by
providing that they must receive a certain minimum of names in each of
a large proportion of states (such as two thirds or three fourths) and
by putting word limits on the measures so proposed.
Given these precautions, the constitutional inclusion of devices for
national intiative or plebiscite has much to commend it, and may go
far toward improving the functioning and stability of our national
democratic system.
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