March 21, 2004
JAMES WEPT:
The Florida Chamber's Big Fish Tale (Paul Jacob, March 21, 2004, Townhall)
Cozying up to Florida legislators, the Florida Chamber of Commerce is agitating to take initiative rights away from Florida voters.Otherwise, the Chamber warns, disaster is at hand. Those wild and crazy Florida voters will amend their state's constitution with such reckless abandon that businesses will flee, leaving Florida bankrupt. (Ignore all the people and businesses flocking to Florida these days. It spoils the Chamber's story.)
According to the Chamber, Florida voters should be put in their place, voting only for their betters, paying their taxes, keeping quiet.
Never mind hanging chads; the Chamber lobbyists are trying to hang the voters. Their rallying cry might as well be: "Disempower the voters now, before it's too late."
The Chamber of Commerce bemoans that Florida's state constitution has been amended 95 times since 1970.
Is this really appearing in a conservative publication? The initiative is an abomination, an instrument of exactly the kind of direct democracy that the Founders rightly abhorred. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 21, 2004 5:47 PM
Initiatives wouldn't be necessary if legislatures were responsive to citizens' concerns.
Representative democracy is the best way, not the perfect way.
I don't recall you being upset when Arnold circumvented the Cali legislature with his budget initiatives.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 21, 2004 10:27 PMYes, there's an idiotic op-ed in the LA Times about how Republicans are being hypocritical by trying to enforce Campaign Finance laws. Just because laws are bad doesn't mean you're obligated not to take advantage of them.
Posted by: oj at March 21, 2004 11:10 PMI should add that "paying their taxes" is somewhat misleading, in the sense that it summons up images of personal income taxes: Florida has no personal income tax.
Posted by: Chris at March 22, 2004 7:22 AMWho says "representative democracy" is the best way? I think it is becoming a rebuttable presumption.
With the advent of the internet, blogs, and "new" media outlets, it may just be better to have more initiatives.
If representation is a better filter of the "passions" of the electorate, then maybe we need to push that representation down to the precinct level, instead of the abusrd notion that a congressman can "represent" 500000 people.
I don't know that we should chuck the current system(s), but if memory serves, aren't most ballot initiatives "conservative"?
Posted by: BB at March 22, 2004 1:32 PMRewriting your constitution everytime 51% of the population is whining about something is inherently unconservative. Wanna be California?
Posted by: oj at March 22, 2004 2:43 PMIf 51% of the population wants something, shouldn't the legislature be addressing it ?
Representatives dampen public passions and manias, but they are also bottlenecks where special interests can create logjams.
Is tort reform an unpopular or unnecessary measure, or have trial lawyers managed to keep it bottled up in the US Senate ?
Initiative measures are like pressure relief valves.
To the extent that initiatives pass, legislatures are failing their constituants.
Michael:
No. 51%+ wants it to rain soda and snow money.
Tort refdorm, for example, is unpopular but necessary.
Posted by: oj at March 22, 2004 8:25 PMYou all (OJ excepted) are assigned to read Aristotle's Politics and the Federalist and to write a 1000 word paper explaining why the federalist thought that it was unwise to create a democracy and why it was creating a republican system with a senate.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at March 23, 2004 8:48 AM