Category: News

Much of the body politic is cynical and unsatisfied with American government. According to the study, Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2009, published by the Pew Research Center for the People &’ the Press, more than three-fourths, 76 percent, of the people believe that "elected officials in Washington lose touch with the people pretty quickly." The majority of citizens, 51 percent, also believe that "people like me don’t have any say in what the government does." Citizens feel they lack efficacy because they believe their voices are outweighed by the influence that special interest groups wield over government policy. A Taubman Center for Public Policy Survey from 2004 indicates that 64 percent of Americans agree "the government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves."

Many people believe that instituting direct democracy could change dissatisfaction with the government and the lack of political participation. Under the Democracy Act, donations to campaigns for initiatives would be limited to "persons." This would help negate the power special interest groups currently wield over elections and politics as a whole. As John Dewey famously declared, "the cure for the ailments of democracy is more democracy."

The heyday of direct democracy was during the Progressive movement. Out of the 24 states that have initiative and referendum, most received it between 1895 and 1943. With the coming of World War I and then World War II, the flurry of political reform began to die down. The supporters of the initiative and referendum envisioned a regeneration of American society that would be brought about by destroying the monopolies and trusts of large corporations.

While supporters were successful in legalizing initiatives in approximately half of all states, they have not managed to create a national initiative. After World War II, it was not until 1977 that the concept of a national ballot measure was again raised in Congress. Since Congress, as a whole, has never been receptive to the legalization of direct legislation, the National Initiative for Direct Democracy decided to institute a national initiative without Congressional consent.

Philadelphia II, a nonprofit organization, has been gathering signatures since 1992 for the National Initiative for Democracy, which is composed of the Democracy Amendment and Democracy Act. The National Initiative for Democracy would amend the Constitution and institute direct democracy throughout the United States. In the event this amendment gathers enough signatures to be enacted, the nature, composition and character of American federal and state government would be drastically altered. The National Initiative for Democracy is important since it will determine whether American democracy remains solely representative, or whether it will move closer to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s ideal democracy of direct citizen participation. The Democracy Amendment declares and affirms the sovereign power of the American people to create their own laws, while the Democracy Act details the establishment of the legislative procedures, which will allow citizens to create legislation.

Members in Congress are not eager to support the Democracy Amendment since it would weaken their power. Likewise, powerful special interest groups do not lend support to the National Initiative for Democracy because it would upset the status quo. Special interest groups are able to lobby Congress and pass legislation that benefits a distinct portion of the population. Under initiatives, legislation would come to reflect the median voters’ political preference. This would cause a shift away from the current status quo and thus it would negatively impact the established special interest groups. The National Initiative of Democracy has, for the most part, not been attacked or critiqued because it is not viewed as a legitimate threat.

Thus far, the National Initiative has flown relatively low on the nation’s political radar. It has predominantly been an Internet movement supported by the Democracy Foundation and vote.org. In order to be most effective the National Initiative needs to be brought to the attention of the general public. As individuals we may be unable to personally contact enough people to pass the amendment, but by raising awareness and encouraging deliberation we can educate people about the current movement for direct democracy.

 

Gordon Morrisette is a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore majoring in political science and history. His column, Progressive Offensive, runs on alternate Wednesdays.

Washington state’s system of voter initiatives was enacted as a means for citizens to keep the state legislature in check. It represents a proud reminder of what our Founding Fathers envisioned when they spoke of checks-and-balances. That is not the case this year. More than $30 million has been spent so far on this year’s initiatives. This money is not coming from average voters. Rather, it is coming from special interests, corporations and unions intent on putting their stamp on Washington politics. Today, it is important for voters to not only know what impact initiatives will have, but to know where the funding for these initiatives comes from.

An examination of each initiative reveals the corporate interests behind them. I-1100 would privatize liquor sales. Costco spent $1.2 million to put I-1100 on the ballot. Costco would have much to gain if businesses could suddenly sell alcohol in Washington state.

I-1107 would repeal taxes on soda, candy and bottled water. Thus far, the American Beverage Association has spent $14.3 million to promote this initiative. According to The Spokesman-Review, that is 99 percent more money than has been raised against I-1107. In fact, I-1107 is on pace to break the record for amount of spending on a single state initiative.

Oil companies such as BP and Shell have thrown their weight behind I-1053, a Tim Eyman concoction that would require a two-thirds majority vote from the state legislature to raise taxes. They have done so because the legislature almost passed a $1.50 barrel tax on petroleum products. Americans are justifiably angry at legislators these days in all levels of government. But citizens voting to further disable the legislative body they already complain is too slow to pass meaningful legislation is an irony that not even a great fiction writer could dream of.

California is a great example of what happens when a two-thirds “super majority” is required to pass budget legislation. California’s economy is sinking faster than a house sitting below a Los Angeles County mudslide.

The initiative system is a useful tool to ensure direct democracy for citizens, but it has become a useful tool for special interests to implant their own agendas. If this is what campaign funding is going to look like in the future, Washington voters need to be aware of funding origins. A democracy functions best when its citizens are well informed and knowledgeable of what they are voting for.

Think about that before you decide to vote to ease state restrictions on where you can buy beer.

There’s a saying in political circles that goes something like this: "Laws are like sausages – it is best not to see them being made."

The legislative process can be ugly at times. But so can direct democracy through the citizen-driving initiatives and referenda.

 

Such is the case this year with two sets of conflicting propositions on the November general election ballot.

 

There are, for examples, two initiatives to end the state’s monopoly on liquor sales. Initiative 1100 is the retailers proposal while Initiative 1105 is the liquor privatization plan offered by wholesalers. What happens if voters approve the conflicting ballot proposals?

 

The question is likely to end up in the courts.

 

So, too, is the apparent conflict between two other ballot measures: Referendum 52 which continues the tax on bottled water to pay for school improvements and Initiative 1107 which would repeal the bottled water tax. What if voters approve the tax on one hand (Ref. 52) and torpedo it at the same time by passing I-1107.

 

Again, it may be up to the courts to sift through the legal issues and make a determination.

 

Those legal issues aside, today The Olympian’s editorial board focuses on Referendum 52. We’re encouraging a “no” vote.

 

In the throes of a national and state economic recession, this is no time to exceed the state’s debt limit — even with a dedicated funding source. We’ve seen a national backlash against deficit spending and this is no time to take the state of Washington further into debt.

 

The Ref. 52 ballot title asks whether the state should issue bonds to finance construction and repair projects to increase energy efficiency at public schools, colleges and universities. The state is proposing to spend $505 million and cover that debt through continuation of the tax on bottled water which is scheduled to expire on July 1, 2013.

 

The state budget office says the 29-year debt service on the bonds would amount to nearly a billion dollars — $937 million to be precise. An additional $2.2 million would go to the state annually to administer the program. The state would spend $32.3 million a year to cover the debt obligation. Offsetting the debt payment would be an estimated $39.8 million in revenue from the bottled water tax. An additional $14.9 million is generated annually for local governments through the tax.

 

There’s no doubt that many of this state’s 2,049 public school buildings and 1,440 college and university buildings could use energy retrofits that will result in annual savings to each institution. And the construction industry which has been hard hit by the recession, certainly could use the jobs.

 

But job estimates vary widely.

 

Ref. 52 proponents say 30,000 jobs will be created by spending $505 million for school improvements. Opponents say that’s an exaggeration. They claim only 5,700 short-term construction jobs will be created, which, with debt service will cost taxpayers $162,000 per job.

 

Our objection certainly is not with the school improvements. Energy retrofits make sense. And we don’t have a problem with a tax on bottled water. But if these improvement projects are a true priority, then lawmakers need to find a way to pay for them within the current debt limit. This referendum loosens the debt limit handcuffs that keeps legislative spending in check. Even with a dedicated funding source, that’s ill-advised.

 

Then there’s the legal quagmire of what happens if voters approve the bottled water tax with Referendum 52 and take it away with Initiative 1107. The state could end up with a voter mandate to spend $505 million on school repairs and no money to pay for the bonds.

 

This is one of those cases of when in doubt, vote no.

 

“Do you trust the people?”

We had barely been seated at the restaurant when my guest fired off his query. I had asked him to lunch after a state capitol event, where he was advocating that Minnesota should trade its bicameral legislature for a unicameral, and I had been pitching the idea of establishing statewide initiative and referendum.

He was a little skeptical of initiative and referendum. I was completely certain that without the initiative his idea would never see the light of day.

“No, I don’t trust the people,” I responded. “But I trust the people a whole lot more than I trust the politicians.”

Last week in San Francisco, I told this tale to more than 300 people — academics, political professionals, media folks, initiative activists, legal experts, elected officials and concerned citizens — gathered from six continents and more than 30 countries and 30 U.S. states, who had come together for the U.S. Conference on Initiative and Referendum, part of the 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy. The assembled multitude — both speakers and audience — was not merely from across the globe, but also from all across the political spectrum, often a far wider divide than mere geography and language.

I wanted to make the point that people are only being sensible when expressing concern about the power of government. History has shown that law-making, whether by legislatures or by voters, can be dangerous when misused. Democracy should never be two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for dinner. Constitutions should safeguard fundamental rights from momentary majorities of any size.

Still, it strikes me that the people are far less apt to play the wolf than are politicians. At least, on purpose. Additionally, the voters are more likely than are politicians to quickly fix their mistakes; too often, politicians’ first (and only?) reaction to problems is to point the finger of blame at their opponents. Moreover, special interests may bribe their way to success in legislatures, but cannot buy off the entire electorate.

Initiative and referendum is best understood not as a process whereby citizens can govern directly (for instance, less than one percent of initiative-happy California’s laws come via citizens), but as a means for citizens to check their elected officials, to force action when needed, to block unpopular measures, and to make reforms that self-interested legislators would nary consider.

Today, California’s robust process of initiative and referendum has been blamed for everything from the state’s financial difficulties to wild fires. It is especially intriguing that opponents of initiative and referendum claim that citizen-initiated measures have spent wildly and bankrupted the state.

Facts are stubborn things, however, and a recent look by the Center for Governmental Studies at ballot measures that spent money found that 83 percent of spending via the ballot came from measures placed before voters by the legislature, not through citizen initiatives. CGS President Bob Stern was forced to inform a joint legislative committee, “Most of the ballot-box budgeting has come from you.”

Most of the spending mandated by initiative comes via one measure, 1988’s Proposition 98, which requires a minimum level of K-12 education spending. Yet, not only is the California Legislature and electorate unlikely to want to slash education spending, Prop 98 specifically grants the legislature the power to suspend its spending requirement should that be necessary. So much for legislators’ hands being tied.

Often, those complaining most loudly about spendthrift voters are really upset about Prop 13. The epoch-making measure mandated that tax increases must garner a two-thirds vote in both chambers of the legislature. Seems Prop 13’s modern-day enemies’ real goal is to shovel in more tax dollars for legislators to overspend, not fewer.

Opponents of the initiative also argue that special interests have hijacked California’s ballot measure process. Certainly, they have tried. Just as certainly, they hold great sway in the state’s legislature (as they do in every other state’s so-called representative institutions and in the Congress). But special interests with their bankrolls and lobbyists don’t fare so well at the ballot box as they do in the corridors of the capitol.

Back in June, Prop 16 went down to defeat even after PG&E, the California utility, spent over $46 million for passage against less than a $100,000 opposing the measure. In 2008, another proposition lost after the Yes side outspent the No side by a margin of 161 to 1. Seems one cannot buy love, nor enough votes to win.

Much of the opposition to initiative and referendum is really displeasure with losing elections, and a belief that one’s agenda may fare better with legislators than with voters. The intellectual way to express this is a support for “representative government” as opposed to “direct democracy.” Hidden behind such high-minded talk is usually a simple agenda: Push the people away from decision-making so as to pull something over on them, against their interests and against their common sense.

If one truly supports representative government, how can one oppose each person representing themselves?

By Jim Morford

As summer is officially underway we find ourselves as a nation about half-way through the process by which political parties select the candidates who will carry their banner into the fall General Election.

Candidate selection takes several different forms. No matter how they are chosen, elected or anointed most incumbents seeking election to the US Congress this fall will be re-elected. Historically, incumbents win about 95% of the time. Even in what seems to be shaping up as an anti-incumbent year it is likely that over 80% of them will be re-elected.

In stark contrast to what the framers of our government believed, we have evolved a class of professional politicians. Those honorable men who crafted our Constitution believed that citizens had an obligation to give back to their communities in the form of public service, but only for a short time and only after having achieved some other success in life.

George Washington, who could have been king or president for life, established the tradition of two terms for the president – a tradition that served as a check against any one person, or presidency, accumulating too much power. It is a tradition that was honored until Franklin Roosevelt ran for and was elected to four terms becoming in effect president for life. FDR’s strangle hold on the office generated the Twenty Second Amendment to the Constitution which provides that no person shall be elected to the office of president more than twice.

The framers envisioned serving in elected office as a temporary civic duty. Our politicians have twisted the word service from its original intent to today’s elitist expectation that the public exists to serve its elected leaders.

When my great grandfather sought reelection as Clerk of Monmouth County the local weekly newspaper strongly criticized him for having the audacity to run. Having served one term the paper charged, “…. he is not satisfied—like Oliver Twist he comes around with his platter and asks for more. He is like the horseleech that cries give, give, give! His desire for office is insatiate.” That was in1888 and he was only seeking a second term. (By the way, he won reelection.)

How times have changed. Unencumbered by a term-limiting constitutional amendment, members of congress can serve for as long as they can get re-elected. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) is the longest serving United States Senators with 47 years in office. In the House of Representatives John Dingle (D-CA) has been in office there for more than 54 years and John Conyers (D-MI) has been in the House for more than 45 years. It is not unusual for members of congress from both political parties to serve for 30 years or more.

The professional politician living off the taxpayers is relatively new in American history. Most of those politicians who have served the longest tenures in office came in after the time of the New Deal. Prior to that, professional or career politicians were more the exception than the rule.

A story is told of a man who was confused by the use of the word “service” as in Internal Revenue Service, Postal Service, Civil Service and politicians pointing with pride to their record of Public Service.

One day he happened to overhear a couple of farmers talking and one of them said he had just hired a bull to “service” one of his cows. Now, so the story goes, he understands what the politicians mean by “public service.”

The current congress is one of the most irresponsible congresses in the history of the country. It has passed bills of hundreds, even thousands of pages that greatly expand the powers of the federal government and recklessly increase our national debt without most of the members having read, let alone analyzed, the legislation.

This 111th Congress has abdicated one of the most basic duties of a congress which is to pass a budget for the operation of the federal government. The majority leadership has determined that it would be too politically dangerous to try to enact a budget this election year. So congress will just ignore that responsibility. Yet the members of both political parties seem to have no problem feeding lavishly at the public trough and continuing to reward themselves for not doing their jobs.

In recent years there have been attempts to refresh our democratic institutions by instituting term limits. These efforts have not met with much success. It is understandable why a frustrated public would seek to limit the terms of office for those who make a career of living high off the taxpayers and to retire with generous pensions. However, in a representative democracy the citizens should be able to elect, re-elect or reject their representatives as they see fit.

So how do we deal with the political elitists who shower themselves with automatic pay raises and a wide variety of other benefits?

There are at least two ways that would discourage those who are leeches on the system.

The first would be to not allow any service in elective office to be pensionable or be credited toward any pension. This would certainly separate those who truly want to render civic service from those who want the public to serve them. Any person who would not seek elective office unless it had the promise of a pension after successive terms is likely to be a person more dedicated to self service than public service.

The second would be to require that for every year in which the federal government’s spending exceeds its income the members of congress would have their salaries and benefits reduced by 5% or an amount equal to the percentage each annual deficit adds to the national debt, whichever is greater. Managing the fiscal affairs of the government – not the economy – is the responsibility of congress.

Since enacting either of these ideas into law, or proposing them as constitutional amendments, would require an act of congress, there is a greater chance of a snowball lasting for a decade in Hell. Perhaps just getting these ideas discussed by voters might begin to separate those who should be elected to office from those who should be retired from office. Maybe it is even time to consider a national initiative process.

These days we are governed by many who come to congress to do good, but then stay on to do very well.

Jim Morford is former Assistant Director of Government Relations for the NJ Education Association, former VP and chief lobbyist for the NJ Chamber of Commerce, former President of the NJ Food Council and is Executive Director Emeritus of NJ SEED. He is a partner in the consulting firm of Morford-Drulis Associates, LLC. The opinions expressed in this column are his and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any clients or associates.
 

Republican gubernatorial candidate Robert Bentley has a campaign ad that ends with this phrase: “Alabama needs a doctor.”

Our government needs to be cured of its ills, but it doesn’t need a doctor.

The medication to cure many, if not most, of the ills of our government is called “Initiative and Referendum.”

If Alabama became the next state to have a constitutional I&R provision, we would have a process voters could use to introduce real reform and accountability legislation that could bypass the state Legislature and the governor and appear on a ballot for voters to accept or reject.

A bill to allow this has been introduced in the Legislature for several years. In 2006, it got out of committee and was debated on the floor of the House.

According to the Birmingham News, Bentley spoke against the bill saying, “We have a representative republic and not a direct democracy.”

That’s correct, but as Teddy Roosevelt said in 1912, “The initiative and referendum should be used, not as substitutes for representative government, but as methods of making such government really representative. Action by the initiative or referendum ought not to be the normal way of legislation; but the power to take it should be provided in the constitution, so that if the representatives fail truly to represent the people on some matter of sufficient importance to rouse popular interest, then the people shall have in their hands the facilities to make good the failure.”

Alabama needs I&R. It doesn’t need Bentley.

Don Seibold

Wetumpka

For some time now, Mike Gravel, a former Democratic Senator representing Alaska, has been advocating the National Initiative for Democracy (NI4D).  It was, in fact, the main focus of his 2008 campaign for the U.S. presidency.

The NI4D is a proposal, put forward by The Democracy Foundation, to create ballot initiatives at the U.S. federal level, that is, allow the American people the power to propose and vote on laws directly, bypassing the politician in Washington.  Along with Gravel, Ralph Nader and Tom Knapp have also endorsed this proposal.

Gravel makes this sound good, claiming that the people can, under his proposal, repeal the many egregious laws foisted upon us by the political class.  He provides a solidly libertarian defence, saying that this initiative will “stem[] government growth.”  Writes Gravel,

American citizens can gain control of their government by becoming lawmakers and turning its purpose to public benefit, and stemming government growth—the people are more conservative than their elected ofcials regardless of political party.

With all due respect to Mr. Gravel, whom I still consider to be a hero for his role in ending the draft and the Vietnam War, I reject the NI4D proposal.  While it’s not the worst proposal in the world, it fails to address the fundamental problem of governance vis-à-vis the natural, inalienable rights of the individual.  It does not promote true self-government, but rather erects an illusory self-governance.

We need to devolve all government power, not simply down to the state level, not simply down to the county level, not simply down to the level of the local community (although that would certainly be a step in the right direction), but all the way down to the individual level.  No person should be able to have power over another person’s life except insofar as the second person chooses to allow the person to have said power, and for a duration no longer than the second person allows. Unfortunately, democracy allows majority factions to rule over minorities, and as such, I have to reject democracy in favour of individualist anarchism.

Now, by anarchism I certainly do not mean that chaotic state of existence we call lawlessness or anomie.  By anarchy, I merely mean that state of existence in which no person is considered to legitimately rule over the person or justly-acquired property of anyone else.  My anarchism is clearly a libertarian anarchism, for I consider such actions as rape, murder, and the theft or unconsensual destruction of someone’s justly-acquired property as violations of natural law, what I call “natural crimes.”  Of course, one is justified in using defensive force, if one so wishes, against these “natural criminals,” so long as the defensive force used is proportional to the initiatory forced employed by the criminal.

Benjamin Tucker, the nineteenth century individualist anarchist most famous for his newspaper Liberty, defined anarchists as

simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats.  They believe that “the best government is that which governs least,” and that that which governs least is no government at all.  Even the simple police function of protecting person and property they deny to governments supported by compulsory taxation.  Protection they look upon as a thing to be secured, as long as it is necessary, by voluntary association and cooperation for self-defence, or as a commodity to be purchased, like any other commodity, of those who offer the best article at the lowest price.  In their view it is in itself an invasion of the individual to compel him to pay for or suffer a protection against invasion that he has not asked for and does not desire.

Gravel correctly notes, in his defence of the NI4D, that “[g]overnments throughout history have been tools of oppression,” but he then incorrectly adds: “they need not be.”  The state is an inherently oppressive, inherently aggressive institution, for all states, in order to be states, either must steal the products of someone’s labour, must dictate how people may live their lives and spend their money (even when said people are acting entirely nonviolently), or must use aggression to prevent private security agencies from having an equal footing under the law with itself.  If the state were to cease doing these three things, then it would cease to be a state, but would instead become simply a private charity or firm.

In an address delivered in 1877, the venerable liberal Lord Acton stated,

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority; but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.  For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist.  But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.  The humblest and most numerous class of the Athenians united the legislative, the judicial, and in part, the executive power.  The philosophy that was then in the ascendant taught them that there is no law superior to that of the state, and that, in the state, the law-giver is above the law.

If the NI4D is established, people will be no freer than they were prior to its establishment.  All that will have changed is that the individual will gain a single, minuscule vote on matters of dire importance, a vote that will be completely overwhelmed by the combined votes of the others.  In other words, the individual will still be under the tyrannical control of others, will still be a victim of oppression.

If people are reticent in telling George Bush and Barack Obama, “No, you don’t have a right to run my life,” how much less willing will they be to say that to the supposed vox populi?

In summation, the National Initiative for Democracy sounds nice, but it won’t give people the freedom to control their own lives, all it will give them is a vote in the control of the lives of their neighbours.  Worse yet, because it will create the illusion of self-rule, of self-government, it will discourage people from fighting for their own liberation, and as such, is a highly anti-libertarian and counter-revolutionary idea.

—Alexander S. Peak

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My response to this and some other libertarian purism is this: “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.” ~Yogi Berra

IF EVERYONE would play by Alex’s rules, it sounds nice. But history shows that “power abhors a vacuum.” If nobody is in charge, the very worst people TAKE charge. If EVERYONE is in charge, as in Gravel’s NI4D, it is the best form of government, though not perfect like a theoretical one.

Libertarians think THEY should determine the functions of government, instead of ALL of us. I reject such cultism. Don’t tell me what’s “natural”: I live outdoors half the time, and with indigenous peoples from Mexico and Guatemala who have many centuries of PRACTICE, not theory, of self-government. When left alone most groups let EVERYONE participate in setting law and policy, and the much-evolved result is quite different from Alex’s or others’ theories -and varies from place to place. The Zapatista rebels of Mexico have set the standard with local, state, national and even international “consultas” [consultations or referenda, like in Gravel’s project].

Evan Ravitz

The long and divisive fight over U.S. health care reform exposed basic weaknesses in the processes of governance. As is so often true in American politics these days, politicians and lobbyists kept complex subjects to themselves, pushing expert discussion and systematic public debate to the sidelines. Although the final legislation expands coverage, and I favor it for that reason, it falls far short of the changes we need to lower costs and improve health outcomes.

During 14 months of debate over health care, the administration did not put forward a clear, analytical policy white paper on the aims, methods and expected results of the proposed reforms. Only the Congressional Budget Office’s budget scoring of legislative proposals was even partly systematic; no comparable independent analysis exists on other substantive issues. The actual health consequences of the legislation were never reviewed or debated coherently.

The one-day Health Care Summit in February epitomized the problem. The president, the vice president, the secretary of Health and Human Services and the president’s health czar (a lawyer) were together with 38 members of Congress. There were three M.D.s, all Republican congressmen who opposed the administration’s plans, but no public health specialists, health economists, speakers for civil society, leaders of health maintenance organizations or representatives of other health care organizations. The debate was all about who would pay for what, not about how to organize health delivery to achieve better, lower-cost outcomes.

One might think that the real action had all happened earlier, in congressional hearings, in brainstorming sessions and in the bargaining sessions with key stakeholders. Yet the earlier process was relentlessly driven by political and lobbying calculations and without the informed participation of the American people, who were left to vent at Tea Parties and on blog sites. The mammoth legislation is impenetrable, a widely noted fact. Experts were never invited systematically to comment or debate about it so as to help the public and politicians understand the issues. The lack of clear policy documents from the administration meant that the public had little basis for reaction other than gut instincts and fearful sentiments fanned by talk-show hosts.

In general, our political system regularly puts around the table people who are not the best equipped to find deep solutions to our problems. Certainly it has also done so on climate change, with the nation’s expert community kept at arms length from the legislative drafting process. As with health care, the outcome has been House and Senate draft legislation that lacks public support. The same has been true on Afghanistan: the “war cabinet” has lacked real expertise on that country’s culture, economy and development challenges, and the U.S. public has remained uninformed of true options.

As a start toward better policy making, the administration should put forward a detailed analysis justifying each major proposed policy change. That white paper could form the basis for coherent public debate and reflection, along with Web sites where outside experts would be invited to share opinions accessible to the public. The public, too, would be invited to blog about that position paper. A version of the draft legislation understandable to lay readers would also be posted (alongside the more technical and inevitable legalese) and opened to online commentaries by experts and the public. The administration and Congress would rely more heavily on external advisory panels to tap into the nation’s wealth of expertise and to draw on the views of business, academia and other sectors of society.

In our governance systems today, the intrinsic complexity of the challenges easily outpaces the gut instincts and amateurism of the existing government machinery. I would not presume or recommend that decisions be left to the purported experts, who often represent special interests or have their own biases or narrow views. Still, a systematic vetting of policy options, with recognized experts and the public commenting and debating, will vastly improve on our current policy performance, in which we often fly blind or hand the controls over to narrow interests and viewpoints.