 |
Transparency and Debate in Representative Democracy |
 |
I’m going to let you guys in on a little secret. I watch a lot of C-SPAN. No, really, a lot. If I had three TVs (not to mention one TV and cable, and if electricity was cheaper), those TVs would sit somewhere within my immediate sight at all times and be set to C-SPAN 1, 2, and 3. Don’t ask me why I do this. That’s irrelevant. You should just know that I watch more C-SPAN than any other writers for this website, probably combined.
That said, I’ve seen my fill of House and Senate sessions. They’re probably the best thing to watch on C-SPAN. The Senate is relatively orderly, unless someone calls for an all-night session, or something out of the ordinary occurs. The House, though? The House is a continual mess. It is non-stop raucousness. It’s like an unruly high school detention. Right before Congress went on break, the House had a wonderful mess over a disputed vote and some malfunctioning voting computers. It would have been hilarious if these people weren’t in charge of making laws for this country (okay, it still IS hilarious). But that’s not the point. The point is that there’s nothing special about the people in Congress. People in Congress have just as much (and as little) moral and intellectual aptitude as you and me. They just happened to press the right buttons, know the right people, etcetera, etcetera, to get elected. You know the drill, Jake can tell you all about that gig.
Something else that you ought to know about Congress is that the debate that occurs during sessions is a complete dramaturgical façade. Each party controls a set amount of time and allocates a certain amount to each speaker (at least in the House), in which time they try to sway fellow partisans and those from the “other side of the aisle” (if I had to strike one phrase from American politics, that would be it). But let’s be honest here, who are they trying to put on this show for? Certainly not for each other. Each Congressperson and Senator has their mind made up before the bill comes to the floor. Deals are made behind closed doors, language is changed around, moves are made, then they vote. Then the debate on the floor? That’s just for the public record. C-SPAN has made it the easiest ever to “see” the political process at work, that is, it gives the best possible stage to view our government’s theatrics.
What I want to know is, why do we still have a representative government? This government doesn’t partake in “discussion” on issues, unless it’s a vote where legislators are sitting on the fence. That’s not most of the time, however, since if you’re in office, and you’re associated with a party, then you’re pretty much going to have strong opinions on most things. What debate is supposed to do is convince people who are undecided. That’s right, the non-partisan, non-dogmatic 24 to 58 percent of America.
There needs to be a way for people in this country to do any or all of the things that legislators do (I only had two of these in mind, but this document reminded me of a third):
- Create Our Own legislation (the initiative):
There is the power in this country to create a national discussion of legislation, in much of the way that we in the blogosphere have conversations about issues. The difference between this and the majority of blogs is that this network would be creating laws through debate (think stories as proposed legislation, comments as debate), rather than reporting or giving retrospective opinion.
-
Approve or Reject Proposed Legislation (the referendum):
This is already a tactic used in many municipalities. The city council or whatever legislative body proposes legislation, then puts it to a vote in the general election. Take this as what you will, since the people must completely accept or reject a whole piece of legislation, rather than amending it. There may be some chance for debate on this when it comes to town hall meetings and such.
-
Remove Elected Legislators From Office (the recall):
You’ll remember this is what happened to former California Governor Gray Davis after that state’s energy crisis. However, there is no process of recalling legislators elected to Congress.
And there are no offices in the federal government that are subject to recall. When it comes to “direct democracy”, these mechanisms are only available on our local to state levels. But with the availability of the Internet and similar technology, what stops them from being implemented on a federal level? Don’t give me crap about scale and logistics. If Google can serve up billions of people per day, if blogs like DailyKos can exist, if moderation systems like digg and Slashdot work, we can have an efficient, community moderated debate and voting system. Our communities can come up with similar discussion systems.
Why can’t the community be expanded to a level where there’s just more than “one vote” for a guy (and I use “guy” because of the prevalence of rich white men in the legislature) that isn’t much smarter than you? Additionally, we’re going to need independent media to make sure the people qua legislators are receiving correct information (this, at least, deters those Aristotelians out there afraid of demagoguery in a direct democracy). In this age of information distribution and communication, each person can and must have more power than to only give “one vote”. For every person, there needs to be one voice.
(As an endnote, Mike Gravel has already proposed a direct legislating system, but from what I can tell, it seems to be a mixture of the current legislative system and an addition “Check” akin to a referendum vote. If you know about it, add it to the discussion).
I certainly support more referenda and recalls. Having the people directly vote on legislation does raise logistical problems for me, but as you said you don’t want to hear about those. So how about the trust problem, the corruption problem? I don’t even trust an electronic voting machine. I barely even trust a poll worker to count paper ballots. So if we’re voting online, who’s doing the counting? Plus, access to the internet is often determined by one’s economic status. I don’t want to see a situation where some people can vote comfortably from their homes, others have to vote in public libraries or other public places, and others simply can’t vote. I don’t mean to sound so critical - it’s a great idea in principal - but I have serious doubts.
Representative democracy is deeply flawed. Accountability is difficult to achieve or maintain. Hell, in the Founding Fathers’ vision they hoped we wouldn’t even have political parties. It’s a tangled problem. Again, I think the referenda and the recalls are great ideas. And I would add to that that we need more complex ways of voting for candidates - ranked choice ballots, splitting of electoral college votes within states, multiround elections even.
Well-written piece.
J-ro and I had a conversation similar to this subject on a more direct voting process with accesability for everyone.
I proposed a system of kiosks similar to pay phones or ATMs. And when an issue comes up whether its a stop light installation, or a presidential election the votes would be cast in a more expiditious and accessible manner for the general public.
This would give the ststem as it is a really good run for their money. C-span would go out of business.
Votes would be counted by 3 or 4 independent organizations and then the results would be compared for variances. Kind of like the cops separating two partners in crime to see if their stories match.
I have respect for Ish’s skepticism, but as Alex said, we’ve done way more complex things. We can figure out a way to make voting fair, easy, and universal (and micky’s proposal might be a good start). Basically, if the only objectiong people have are logistical, the plan should move forward.
The problem is not the people objecting, its washinton knowing what would happen if the system did improve. This paranoia I am pretty sure would be the same in corporate America and who ever else has a stake or advantage in the system as it is.
I never understood why we have an electoral vote instead of just a nationwide majority vote. It has been explained to me and I,ve studied it. But it doesnt make sense to me because it conflicts with my belief of what the real majority is. It benefits people in certain districts to have their hopeful win. But I think when the majority of the country is in favor of something, that should be that.
“A democracy can not exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the Public Treasury… with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy.”
–A. Tyler
I think that would apply to a real democracy.
Our goverment for 200 years has been referd to as a democracy. And the only reason our goverment has survived this long and will continue to survive is because it is a living breathing form of goverment that changes with the times. Maybe not as quickly as we would like it to.
If the fiscal thing were true this country would of collapsed 3 or 4 times over by now.
I often wonder if a true direct democracy would work for government. These days it seems like it couldn’t be much worse than the system we have. The first and main problem really comes down to security. Is there really an internet based voting system which couldn’t be hacked? Highly unlikely.
After that you’d have to come up with a framework, especially how to keep things in budget. I could easily see a direct democracy create a rediculously huge government unless there was some real connection to budgets, taxes, etc.
Anyhow.. I’d love to hear any suggestions for security that would be good enough for such a system. If we can’t even get secure evoting terminals, I’m sceptical.
I think the security issue is something our best and brightest could work out. For one, the system would have to be a national referendum system, not a state based or district based system. That way, votes would be a lot harder to incluence. You’d have to hijack a much larger number of votes on the national level to swing the result.
Second, the direct democracy would necessarily be limited in some way. The people couldn’t vote on every little thing coming through Washington, so some kind of elected legislators would still be necessary. However, the writing and voting on important legislation would be delegated to the people. I’d say the point that Alex makes above about Congressman being no different than one of us is key here. If they can balence the budget (or can’t, as is more likely the case), I don’t see why the people would do any worse.
What J-ro says about some kind of legislation doing the voting on the budget or fiscal issues is true. But if they screw it up we should be able to get the jerk out of office immediatly. This is where a quick accessable voting structure would come in real handy, so that were not stuck with that problem for another 4 years.
Then of course there’s the problem of who decides if the suituation deserves to be voted on or not.
The people voting directly on financial issues would be a disater unless we all knew the exact numbers of whatever moneys are coming and going and alotted etc…
In fact, Ronald Rivest has been working on this project for some time. You can thank him for being one of the authors of the RSA security system, which is the reason you can do ANYTHING secure on the internet. More info on him here:
http://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/
well, like you guys keep saying;
They’re all bias.
And by the way, the ” product” is reporting.
I make a better cup of coffe than starbucks, but they must be doing something right because they sell more than anyone.
Opinion is one thing, facts are nother.
And like I said before but no one wants to acknowledge it; We can pull shoddy reports and corruption from all the media”, you’ve done stories on it at this very site before. But OH! FOX is the worst!
Now what would anyone, even a liberal expect from a liberal site.
I know you guys dont like Rupbert and FOX but your really being spiteful in your analysis.
I watch them all I cant really find one thats worse than another. You would think that I would only tear apart CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC but I dont , because I see them ALL playing the same game as FOX.
The above post does not belong there, sorry