On Election Day, Connecticut voters will be asked to vote on whether to hold a convention to amend the state constitution in order to allow the process of initiative and referendum.
It is an awful idea; it is a dangerous idea.
The initiative and referendum process allows citizens to place new legislation on a ballot or vote on laws passed by the Legislature.
For a preview of its consequences, consider Massachusetts. Voters there will be deciding whether to eliminate the state income tax, which brings in 40 percent of state revenues. Yes or no. A simple majority rule wins. Earlier, the Bay State lowered the bar for what issues can be brought before the voters in a simple plebiscite by opening the door to initiative and referendum. Now, an initiative threatens to strip the state of 40 percent of its revenues, depending on the public’s mood that day.
Imagine the consequences to schools, police, roads and bridges, assistance to the poor. Don’t expect those who plan to vote Yes in Massachusetts to focus on any of that. They’re locked in on the money they stand to save and on lashing back at a government seen as unresponsive and/or overly intrusive.
Supporters of initiative and referendum trumpet pure democracy as a superior alternative to do-nothing (or do-too-much) representative democracy.
Their cause does have a superficial appeal because we are all very frustrated that government doesn’t work efficiently. But the problem with pure democracy is that it tends to empower raw frustration at the expense of reasoned consideration of consequences.
Our nation’s founders were wise to deeply distrust raw emotion in politics. That’s why they set up a political system with checks and balances that frustrate the will of a powerful individual or an energized mob. By design, it tends toward inaction rather than action.
Those who pushing initiative and referendum in Connecticut are motivated by a fundamentally different philosophy. They are impatient with representative government, and they plan to end-run it. During a panel discussion at the Hartford Public Library last week, Matthew M. Daly, the chairman of Constitution Convention Campaign, said direct initiative was the main reason for calling a convention. He said it was an appropriate answer to “an unresponsive state Legislature.”
Other panelists opposed the direct initiative idea. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal warned that it carried “huge unknowns,” including the prospect of 100 or more proposals to change the state constitution by direct majority vote in a referendum. While Daly conceded that 50 or more questions were possible, he expressed confidence that legislative leaders, who by law would appoint delegates to the convention, would sift through the proposals and narrow them down to a manageable number.
Now that’s what you call faith in representative democracy.
This ballot issue is before us because the state constitution requires it to be considered by voters every 20 years if there hasn’t been a convention during that period. Our last convention was in 1965.
Given that those who favor a convention in 2008 want to use it to introduce initiative and referendum, we need to vote No.
Blumenthal pointed out that there is already a mechanism for advancing a proposed constitutional amendment to voters in a referendum through the Legislature. Any proposal by a member of either the state Senate or House of Representatives that achieves a three-fourths majority in each chamber or if a simple majority of each chamber approves the proposal in two consecutive sessions, it goes directly to the ballot as a referendum. While there are valid grievances about government, we already have a workable option for addressing them.
