DID MEN JUST BECOME ANGELS?

This Is Direct Democracy Run Amok (Leon E. Panetta, July 27, 2003, LA Times)

Out of frustration, various groups have turned to the reform tools established in California's progressive history. But these tools were not designed to substitute for governing, they were developed to protect against abuses.

Instead, in the last 25 years, the initiative process has fundamentally changed the governing structure of the state. Between 1978 and 2000, more than 600 statewide initiative petitions were circulated, 118 appeared on the ballot and 52 passed. Policies from prison terms to car insurance rates to property taxes to dedicated funds for education and conservation have been enacted not by the governor and Legislature but by the initiative process.

And if groups and partisan interests can afford to put their particular initiative on the ballot, then why not use the same process as a partisan weapon to go after unpopular political leaders regardless of when they were elected? The current recall effort is in many ways the culmination of direct democracy run amok.

But the initiative and recall processes are not the real problem. They are merely symptoms of a much larger problem: the breakdown in trust that is essential to governing in a democracy.

The more the elected leadership of California engages in partisanship and gridlock, the more the public will take governing into its own hands regardless of the consequences.

The only way to avoid runaway initiatives and recalls is for the elected leaders and the voters to recognize their common responsibility to effective self-government.

Leon Panetta is very much the best the Democrats have to offer. He'd be a better governor than anyone who will be contending for the office in the coming recall election, including any of the Republicans. He would, in fact, be a great Treasury Secretary for Mr. Bush. But this is a ridiculous op-ed, one that reflects the kind of Leftish utopianism that seldom otherwise clutters his thinking.This is not "direct democracy run amok"; it is direct democracy. It is an archetypal example of why the Founders abhorred direct democracy.

Here's a handy rule of thumb: at the point where you find yourself depending on the assumption that people will voluntarily recognize that they have a "common responsibility to effective self-government", you've wandered into Fantasyland. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 28, 2003 1:59 PM