December
2006
Referenda: Raise Taxes to Support Death Penalty? Support Concealed Weapons in Schools…
Democrats need to get it together on use of voter referendum questions. For the most part, they've left this election tool to Republicans. That's foolish and incompetent politicking.
While Dems may have pulled it off in the last election, there will not always be low hanging fruit. They need to ask themselves how Republicans managed to succeed in shutting them out of majorities across the nation for over a decade.
Referenda are a strong tool and they need to be used to drive out the Democratic vote, clarify to the voters which issues are supported by whom and keep shaky, sometimes cowardly Dems in line with the values they ran on rather than panicking and running to the right in an effort to keep their jobs. (The problem of Democrats "compromising" themselves out of a majority at the time of redistricting also exists.)
It's time to start framing the discussion in terms of costs. Let's face facts. Wisconsin Republicans have had a fiscal orgy for over a decade with borrowing and spending policies that would make former Enron Executive Kenneth Lay proud. Federally, it's been no different, with a national debt that has risen to such heights that our children will likely never live in a debt free nation.
So why not ask the voters if they support these policies?
Here is just an example of a few choice referenda:
Do you support the legalization of concealed weapons in all places, including church festivals, grocery stores, day care centers and hospitals?
Would you support a significant tax increase to cover the increased cost of re-enacting the death penalty in Wisconsin?
Do you support outlawing embryonic stem cell research?
That last one speaks for itself. Almost everyone knows the benefits of embryonic stem cell research by now. Almost everyone knows someone who has suffered from Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease or cancer.
Aside from one brief referendum done by the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors (under constant threats and barrages from their Republican County Executive Scott Walker) a couple of years ago, those in the center and the left have left referenda to the Republicans. When supervisors were able to come together, they asked voters if they supported a massive borrowing plan to pay for pension obligations — a borrowing plan that Walker supported. Walker spat it back in voters' faces by putting the plan in his budget anyway, but supervisors need to continue to ask voters if they support the punitive things that Walker has been advocating. In fact, it doesn't even need to be things that are in front of them — it could be things that Walker has already supported.
For instance:
Do you support a cut in funding to the department of veteran affairs?
Do you support cutting funding for transportation of the elderly and disabled?
Do you support cutting funding for the parks?
Let's just see what voters would say to those proposals. As long as they're at the polls, do you think they'll support the politicians who advocated those policies? Do you really think that voters, even now, know that Walker supported all those cuts? If they don't, can you imagine a scenario where they would support a politician who cut funding for veterans during war time?
It's time for Dems to stand up and state the differences between them and Republicans. If they don't, once again Republicans will tell voters what Democrats support but once again it will be the same old tired and dishonest approach that the GOP has used to frame the debate for over a decade.
Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan
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I’ve heard you wander down this referenda path before, and we’ve disagreed. As near as I can tell, your argument boils down to: “the republicans abuse the process, therefore, the Democrats should learn to abuse the process as well as the republicans do”.
I disagree. I think we need to lead by example. I think we need to respect the basic notion of the republic and republican (small “r”) government. There are processes which we need, and must respect, but which when corrupted, act to the detriment of the republic. Referenda are one. In some cases, it may be desireable to take the official pulse of the electorate on some issue, but those cases are few and far between. For that matter, recalls are a similar function. Properly used, recalls allow an electorate to fire an official for gross cases of graft or criminality. In its abuse, recalls allow a minority to replay an election with smaller numbers over mere policy or political differences.
In regard to both, I trust the genius of the founders, and I trust republican government. We choose leaders in elections, and we fire them in the next election if they don’t represent us well. Cramming the ballot with the sort of normative, judgment laden language dressed up as questions that you suggest not only makes us no better than the republicans, it undermines the notion of representative government. Somebody needs to stand up for that particular value, and if not us, Who?
California ballots are rife with referenda. In the last election, ballots reached 70 pages, with official, municipally printed and paid for voter guides running in excess of 200 pages just to understand the ballot. We lose the concept of leadership and representation in the face of such competing abuses of a brilliantly conceived representative process.
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this; you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions”.
“In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger”
(James Madison, Federalist 51).
Leading by example? Let’s look at what you’re suggesting in a different light.
War was once thought to be a gentleman’s game. Good little soldiers would line up in a row and then walk toward each other. They would even wear brightly colored starched uniforms. It was pretty but when the opposition discovered the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare, the days of lining up to be shot were over.
What you’re suggesting is that democrats should continue to wear brightly colored uniforms and march cluelessly onto the battlefield. Hopefully our newly elected leaders won’t be so dim.
I agree with you on republican (not the party, the concept) government. Our republic was founded on the principle of a democratic republic and that shouldn’t change but a few well chosen referenda are a tool.
As for your comment about California being rife with referrenda, so be it. The last I heard, California was a blue state while we’re purple at best.
Nice quote though. It’s inspired me to make a quotes page.