We've talked in class about the difference between direct democracy (where The People directly make policy decisions) versus representative democracy (where elected representatives make decisions). There are pros and cons of both, and California may provide an instructive example.
California has had severe problems with its budget for years. Like most states, it spends far more money each year than it brings in. Unlike many states, however, a lot of California's budget is determined, not by representatives, but by initiatives that the public votes on directly.
This experiment in direct democracy began in 1978 when the public voted to pass Proposition 13 which reduced property taxes by 57%. But since then, Proposition 13 has proved to be a double-edged sword. "One side was to protect the people from the government suddenly and wildly raising property taxes," says Bob Hertzberg, a former Assembly Speaker. "That was done. But we didn't resolve how to pay for the services that people want. So we have created this crazy government structure in Sacramento held together by duct tape and bailing wire. It's not coherent and needs to be changed."
In 2009, California's tax revenues declined dramatically and this led to a multi-billion budget gap. Some politicians and pundits blamed the problem on California's initiatives and denounced "ballot-box budgeting". Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, "All of those propositions tell us how we must spend our money... This is no way, of course, to run a state."
So here we have a case where, when the decisions are left to the public, voters vote to lower taxes but also, simultaneously, to expand social services. When there is a budget crisis, elected representatives are limited in what they can do to fix the problem because they cannot override the results of public initiatives.
Direct democracy is the embodiment of popular sovereignty - the idea that The People should govern. However, elected representatives often have expertise that the majority of the public lacks. Both of these are important principles to consider in generating meaningful policies.
Under what circumstances does direct democracy best serve the public interest? Conversely, when is representative democracy more preferable?
I believe that direct democracy works better in a small community or state with very active people. The citizens have to be involved, interested and well educated in order to participate in votes and event with their opinion and take good choices for all of them.
ReplyDeleteIn the other hand representative democracy will have best results in a large community or state like California, where the concentration of people is large. In this case the representative have to be well educated and look forward for the public interest.
Armando Hernandez
I agree with Armando. I believe a direct democracy may work in small states infact and even smaller scale, extremely small cities where most people know each other and can understand what each other may want or be the best for each other.
ReplyDeleteCalifornia is an extremely large state and it is very diverse. I believe there could never truly be a way where a location with two completely different classes would be able to vote on a decision and not be able to clash.
Ennovy Sanchez
I believe that direct democracy can be beneficial in some areas, such as social issues not seriously affecting the state or local budget. Some aspects (not all) of K-12 school curriculum may benefit from having input from the public. Issues concerning budgeting, however, are more complex, and difficult to solve using direct democracy.
ReplyDeleteAs many public office holders know, the public is not always right. The sensitivity and importance of budgeting issues can magnify a potential mistake. Since in a representative democracy the public office holders have (in most cases) preparation for their positions, I believe that the important issues of budgeting should be left to them.
Richard Chesoni (Richard C.)
I'd say that direct democracy best serves public interest for sports all-star games or american idol (which already has more voter turnout) and NOT state budget proposals where uneducated opinions and irresponsible decision-making could place your state into financial disaster.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it's up to the people themselves to realize they don't know what they're doing..How do you vote to lower taxes, but also to expand social services..that's like borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.
C.Cox-Cintron
But this is also a state that elected the terminator as governor so maybe them having a direct democracy isn't such a terrible idea
ReplyDeleteC.Cox-Cintron
I think this is a problem of “Tyranny of Majority”, because in this case of California budget problem, most people want to get the best result for themselves only so that they are kind of ignoring what the government’s position on their decision. And government is on the bigger scale of how to get the best benefit for its people and the people is on a small scale of benefit themselves individually only.
ReplyDeleteThe comments that classmate made about the direct democracy is possible for a small community, but California is a huge state which is bigger than a country, such as Japan (Japan: 377,873 km2 and California: 423,970 km2). So that it is a failure policy. As a “Proposition 13” doesn't work well in California.
When we say about protecting people, we have to classify which is best way to do it. For instance, ban smoking is a way of protecting people’s health and rising tax is to provide more and better service to the public. A lot of people ignoring the role of government, for example people want a healthy, strong and speedy horse and do not want it to eat food to keep its energy. People’s ideology is sometimes confused and some of them may be selfish.
This experiment of direct democracy, pushed forth, of course, by idealists or rebels with no cause, is a great example, in my opinion, of why direct democracy does not function and why people and the decisions of the state should be made by people with higher powers within government or elected representatives. Evidently, as California exemplifies, direct democracy leaves decisions to be made by the people, the people that decide to vote that is, and this is where the problem lies. This is not to argue that we, the citizens of this great country, should be completely controlled, however, I will present certain facts that can be used as evidence to argue that we do need to be guided.
ReplyDeleteProposition 13 limited taxation which is necessary if the state is to provide social services to the people who so strongly feel they deserve it. If one needs it, if one wants it and if one feels they deserve it then pay the taxes. Proposition 98 guaranteed that 40% of the state’s budget would go to K-12 schooling and community colleges, however, because of the complexity of the allocation of money this proposition could not and did not solve the education problem in the state of California. Once again, because of the unfamiliarity with a particular bill the people have failed themselves.
I restate my previous comment, we need to be guided. If people truthfully wanted to become informed and involved they would do so. The time for sorry excuses about coming from the “ghetto” and the “hood” are shameful and until we take the initiative of becoming informed there is no room left open for a direct democracy. Judging by the results of these propositions evidently voters were thinking about benefiting their persons and not the whole of the people in the state. In my opinion that is the problem with direct democracy. However, as Machiavelli states in The Prince, and I am paraphrasing, “the view a leader has from a mountain top of his people in the valley is one the people will never see and therefore never understand, thus, and because he has this view, the leader shall act according to the people’s benefits whether they agree or not.”
Erwin Fernandez
Direct democracy works best when stands to serve the public interest, as the initiative process is supposed to be a protection against huge corporations and special interest groups to bring equality among the citizens. Direct democracy should take place when the ballot takes place in affairs and regulations not associated with any sort of taxation because always the public in favor of less tax and more for public services funding, as what is happening in California cripples the state.
ReplyDeleteCalifornia’s hybrid democracy tries to exploit the best aspects of both representative and direct democracy, but has turned out to be catastrophic for the State, and created a huge debt almost impossible to recover from unless the State change its course and educate its population that representative democracy and its legislation will safe the State and bring brighter future to its citizens and the State must increase its property tax as well as income tax on citizens and businesses.
Maged B
Direct only function in a nation with a small population. it also function in a community where small diverse ethnicity have lived together for a long period of time. when looking at California, the state has a large population there Direct Democracy may only favor one social group. Also refer a tyranny of the Majority, Direct Democracy can be very challenging in a though economy. Public opinion does matter, but sometime public opinion can be base on the person current financial condition.
ReplyDeletewhile Representative Democracy focus more on the public electing a leader, it is helpful to the country as well. Individual do not always make the rights decision elected representative do not always make the rights decision. however when each group(the Public and the the leader) express their opinion it get reviewed and analyzed before final decision are made. also an elected representative tend to be well informed of any laws and bills being pass.
ALIMOU DIALLO.
Direct democracy best serves the public interest because it gives the people a voice in a government in which they are able to govern and make key decisions. In a direct democracy, “Every opinion [has] utterance” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). Despite how appealing this may be for the people to actually make the laws that govern them, there are obvious flaws with this type of democracy. Some examples include tyranny of the majority, threats to minorities, and it would not be possible for the majority of the people throughout the state to gather together in order to pass laws. This is why for a larger state like New York representative democracy, where the people elect officials to make the laws and other important decisions on their behalf, is a better way to go about making key decisions and policies.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it is true that “elected representatives often have expertise that the majority of the public lacks,” some elected officials also lack knowledge about the policies that they are voting on. It is also not always clear if the representatives are for the people and take into account their needs. Government officials should reflect what the people want, but that is not always the case. Also, in a representative democracy the people may not feel like their voice is being heard. Voting is one way in which the people can have an active voice in the government, but elections are not always fair. Some people do not even exercise their rights to vote because they do not believe that it would cause any change.
In a representative democracy, people also need to be active in the political process but it is evident that a lot of people are not even aware of what is going on. Half of Americans know that there are two Senators from each state. 25% of Americans know what is in the first Amendment, 30% are aware that the term for the members for the House of Representatives is two years. The people are not as involved in decision making; this could be a reason why people are unaware of what’s going. In a direct democracy, the people will have to be more aware of what is going on because they are the ones who will be making the decisions.
La Moure Lewis
In my opinion a mix of direct and representative democracy is the best form of governance. Government should use direct and representative democracy at the same time, especially for towns. Direct democracy: people have a say and prevent government from passing controversial policies. Representative democracy: insures the ability to cover government needs and prevents the tyranny of the majority. A mix democracy makes both forms of democracy to meet somewhere in the middle and prevent the bill from either extreme. Because direct democracy works well in a smaller population areas, with active and somewhat educate people. Local government should have combination of direct and representative democracy in towns. While representative democracy works well in larger populations, state and national governments should have representative democracy.
ReplyDeleteMarvin Palomeque
Regarding direct democracy and how it can be effective, I recommend to all of you to watch this documentary http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-take/ and it is about the Argentinian financial crisis 2001-2002 and how the workers managed to operate some of the closed factories and put it back to work and get their jobs back, as the workers of the closed factories which were closed for 2-3 years formed a unity and decided to take over the closed factories, private schools, and health clinic which their owners refused to reopen it as their claim was they are losing money. The workers strategy was to occupy, resist, and produce, their theme was jobs are taking back instead of jobs are coming back in objectivity of expropriation of those factories. The workers heavily rely on public support in their fight with the legislators and courts in their fight against bureaucrats and the owners of the factories who wanted to evict them after seeing the factories are running and generating profit which in most cases was divided equally among the workers, as they agree on their formed unions and worker control assembly runs in direct democracy voting system each worker has one vote and the decisions of majority will be accepted.
ReplyDeleteMaged B
Having both direct democracy and representative democracy is essential for a working government. Direct democracy is important because when people create laws, it can reflect what people are thinking. I think it is necessary for the direct democracy should only be on the state and local government levels. This way, there is no tyranny of the majority and results would be more accurate. It would serve the public interest to have direct democracy in small populated areas, rather than the majority of the people.
ReplyDeleteA representative democracy means that the public elect officials to reflect what the majority of the people want. It is important to have the direct democracy in the state and local levels because more people will be able to vote for issues regarding them and it would be able to serve the interest of the public. Representative government should be on the national, federal level because the officials that are elected are more qualified to create and enforce laws. Also not enough people are politically informed, which affect the overall results. There are budget problems in California because too much power was given to the people, instead of the representatives in government. Both direct democracy and representative democracy should be used to serve majority of the public interest.
Paul Zehngut
I agree that both direct and representative democracy is vital for a successful administration. Citizen should be able to develop laws that reflects their values and views.To disable that, would place people into control environment and that is dictatorship. Direct democracy has its pros and cons.The con would be the birth of tyranny of the majority. And we do not want to repeat history.
ReplyDeleteWhile I believe that representative democracy would be a form of cash and balance. The nation citizen elect an representative who they believed would take there cares to high priority.
J.Longmore
I believe that a representative democracy would best correct this. direct democracies work best in smaller populations, not one the size of California. There are simply too many people, and too many personalities for everyone to have a voice. It would be better if these people voted for someone whom they believed could make these decisions for them.
ReplyDeleteKareem Mitchell
I have had this debate with many people over and over and it has never ended with a clear answer. To me this debate also questions how smart is the public about government or the issue at hand. I do not agree with people who say that the public is ignorant and initiative are decisions that are not fully thought out. but, I also stand strongly behind the idea that there should be a guiding force. The opinions of the citizen's matter, and they are always absurd, yet these opinions can use revisions or more thought at times.
ReplyDeleteWith the california situation its a worst case scenario for direct democracy. Though people should vote on what they want, but the government should provide debate and food for thought to its citizen so they make the right decisions.
sabina sajid
i think that direct democracy and the decisions that follow after that are best when the economy is not involved in it. it is to no surprise that the population would want to lower taxes and raise the privileges and assistance, its all about self help and preservation. Yet this was not right because the representatives knowing better should have had a saying in what the public was asking for, now because they let the population play with the economy they are running a monster deficit. direct democracy is only good when it deals with rights and policies but not when those decisions are mixed with money.
ReplyDeleteClaudia Chevez