So I understand the lawyerly arguments here. You've done a great job explaining them.
Here in California we do hold what citizens want to a great degree of value. We've worked for a more direct democracy with citizen initiated constitutional amendments and more recently, citizen initiated redistricting.
With this in mind, you have to concede that at some point you're going to have a harder time arguing lawyerly points to an ever-growing statewide coalition.
All very good points, with great examples from where you live.
At the very least when decisions are made on a local level as opposed to state/federal, there is more of a chance that 1) people will be able to wrangle control of the situation by voting, and 2) the people who don't like the result can move away.
But you're right, it sounds like there is no easy answer for Los Angeles.
Hmmm. Perhaps this is true, but in my experience the ballot propositions in San Francisco (where I live) are almost as inscrutable as the state-level ones. I'd much prefer to elect local officials that align with my own views so that they can spend time and effort on my behalf figuring out what the right thing is to do.
Like the CA ballot initiative process? No, thanks.
I lived through a couple of election cycles in CA, and realized the whole thing was a farce. At the time, you could pay signature gatherers $1 or so per signature, so anyone with about $1 million to throw around could get their pet initiative on the ballot. Ordinary people don't have the time or expertise to tease out the implications of legislation, because they have other things to do with their lives.
Direct democracy is fine for school boards and homeowners' associations, but societies of millions of people are complicated.
When a court rules that a particular area is outside of elected officials' power to legislate, in a sense they are disenfranchising those who would vote for officials to make such laws. Leaving aside whether it is right or wrong, the underlying issue is that someone's set of values has been elevated outside of the democratic process. This has always been happening since the beginning, but in recent years we've experienced a significant lack of agreement over those values such that one side feels disenfranchised.
You're really missing the point here. The entire point being made is that what the voters at the level of a state or the entire nation is irrelevant because it shouldn't be their decision to vote on.
Even if 75% of California residents want to ban single family zoning, if 75% of residents in Redding want to keep it in Redding, why should people in San Diego have any more than 0% influence on that decision? People 600 miles away should have exactly zero input into something like that.
It's not about whether the decisions being made are good. It's about who gets to make them/how broadly they apply. China could have the greatest ideas in the world, but it doesn't make sense to "democratically" vote with equal representation between US and Chinese citizens on what free speech laws in the US should be. They have 4x the population and nothing in common. Such a "democracy" would be a farce.
I don't admit that the public has a direct interest in setting fiscal policy. That is what our republican representatives do. Except, in California, they are prevented from doing anything useful by a) term limits and b) the constraints placed on governing by the imbecilic initiative process.
I would vote on the initiatives that set the ground rules for governance -- things like redistricting. But the idea that modifying the state constitution as cheaply and easily as it can be modified would lead to better government, well … no.
You bring up some good points, and I agree broadly with your points about direct citizen action.
But I think recent history has taught me that voting matters, and elections matter. People are getting what they voted for across the country, and I don't think there has been a point in recent history where that has been starker. A state like Colorado is often called "purple" because many issues are split down the middle there. So yeah, in some instances there's going to be a mismatch between the electorate and politicians. But at the same time, there's a big difference between e.g. California and Florida regarding how someone like me (LGBTQ) is perceived by the government. It's not direct citizen action holding the lions at bay in my state, it's the collective action of voting for representatives who don't pass legislation targeting us.
Fundamentally, its a cultural issue we have in this country that is somewhat disgusting. Politicians should not be just listening to their voters, or their backers, they should be listening to all their constituents, everyone who lives in the areas they represent, with particular focus to the most vulnerable and not the other way around as what frequently happens. The incentives are completely backward. The interests of those that play the politick game well are prioritized at the cost of the people who need the most assistance from public government.
I'm very supportive of expanded voting and recently LA has made election day into an entire week that you can stroll in and cast your vote (Of course, everyone waited until the last minute and polls wrapped around the block at the very last day you could cast your ballot, but that is beside the point).
Even with vote by mail or other initiatives to get out the vote, this leaves a lot of people without representation in LA. There is the requirement that you have the time to study the issues and become an informed voter, which is a privilege not enjoyed by everyone. There are also a lot of undocumented people paying rent and working jobs in LA. I think these people who are contributing to the local economy should also be represented by the people in charge of the area in which they live their life. They have just as much right to be here as I or any other citizen does.
I think the best way to overcome petty politicking would be to limit the control elected officials have over what should be logical and factually rooted decision making. In LA, council members are more powerful in their district than the mayor or any other elected official, they have absolute control over what gets built be it on parcels of land or even paint on the roads. Just look at the patchyness of the bike lane network to see this effect in action; metro has money earmarked and is ready to build but local council members just refuse to allow it to happen in their district. They operate as little feudal lords who award contracts to friends and deny contracts if some who holds their ear takes issue for whatever reason at all.
Urban planning decisions should not be controlled by politicians, they should be controlled by urban planners who are highly trained civil engineers from the best engineering schools hired to do an apolitical job. They understand these issues better than anyone else in government, and their decisionmaking is rooted in the cutting edge theories and ideas present in their field, profit and personal preference be damned.
This is how public government should be run, deferring decision making to informed experts rather than the wills and wishes of those who command the most influence over their representative.
As a californian for the better part of two decades, and one who shares your observation and question, I suspect that the voter base for referendum issues differs from the voter base for elections.
i don't know how to validate that suspicion, though.
Resorting to voting in legislation to force your neighbours and, on a broader scale, the rest of the municipality to conform to some arbitrary rules should be considered a failure. It means that whoever the concerned group of people are were unable or unwilling to negotiate a reasonable compromise that suits all parties and have fallen back to using force to get their own way, so to speak. I think this is at the heart of the exodus from California, there is no common good will towards resolving disputes equitably. Everything is decided at the ballot box and so everything becomes a divisive issue with close to half the population being on the losing end no matter what the result. It's not surprising that people would up stakes to get away from this.
The problem is right now in SF we have a strong bike lobby and we vote and it still isn’t enough. The idea that voting with a block is a way to forward policy goals in 2020 is quaint TBH. As far as I can tell pretty much all successful political movements in the US (NRA/guns rights, marriage equality etc) have made the most material progress with both direct action (protests) and lawsuits despite both movements being electorally unpopular and having no electoral success at the time of their greatest achievements. Voting is a necessary but insufficient ingredient in policy change and has never been the silver bullet centrist democrats claim it to be. We need to add some legal adventureism to the mix to push the ball forward here both through expanding common law in friendly ways against car centric policies as well as just making it more costly to not have bike lanes than to construct them for the city and its residents.
In a democracy, they end up being so, because those are the people who get to vote. One solution is to move some of the planning functions one level up in the government, so people in the Central Valley also get a say in deciding whether SF's zoning is reasonable or not. This is basically what Japan does.
Two wolves and one sheep can also have a vote about what's for dinner and the outcome be democratic.
I don't know why people in San Diego or NorCal should have a vote about what happens with respect to zoning in Palo Alto or Mountain View. Why not let people in Butte, Montana put in their vote as well?
I find the proposition system extremely aggravating. Even for propositions that I largely or wholly agree with I have to ask myself: does this deserve to be an amendment of the state constitution or city charter? That's the power that voter initiatives essentially have, after all.
When you think about it that way, they almost all look pretty ridiculous. Should the San Francisco city charter have an amendment about whether one particular construction project in 2014 can be built at a certain height? Should we have a ballot initiative every time a new building needs to be built?
That might make sense in some alternate reality if we lived in a direct democracy with routine voting and people actually informed themselves about the issues they were deciding. I think it's pretty safe to say that we aren't living in that world today.
I don’t think people necessarily have the idea that they can keep things the same forever, but I do think it’s quite reasonable for local voters having a say, via the social and democratic processes established in their town, on potential changes to their town. It would seem unreasonable to me for that to not be the case.
That’s true on matters of zoning, schools, libraries, fire stations, or whatever other decisions the town faces. There’s a process for amending zoning rules; there’s usually a process for getting a variance from zoning rules that are unduly burdensome in regards to an individual parcel. What about this democratic process is dysfunctional, other than some people not liking the outcome?
I don't love the idea of having to vote on every single thing. There's too much to learn -- being properly informed is a full time job.
San Francisco and CA in general have a lot of "direct democracy" items on ballots (a couple dozen props each cycle) and nobody really understands more than one or two at the level they probably should. I personally have never read the full text of a CA prop, and I'm guessing most others haven't either.
So you’re saying people who don’t live in an area...... don’t get to vote on the laws in that area?
What else do you propose should happen? Should California allow Texans to vote on state propositions? Should Marin county voters decide on who the Santa Clara County Sheriff is?
Since they haven’t moved there, how could you even decide which hypothetical future residence county they were voting for or eligible in? Would I get to vote in Vail, CO because I’ve always wanted to move there? What if I decide that’s actually silly, and change my mind - are my prior votes now invalid? What if I have 10 different places on my want to move list?
Here in California we do hold what citizens want to a great degree of value. We've worked for a more direct democracy with citizen initiated constitutional amendments and more recently, citizen initiated redistricting.
With this in mind, you have to concede that at some point you're going to have a harder time arguing lawyerly points to an ever-growing statewide coalition.
reply