The Problems with Propositions
Like millions of Americans in the state of California, I recently fulfilled my civic duty and filled out my federal, state, and local ballots. Like millions of Americans, I spent hours and hours scratching my head trying to understand the ins and outs of dozens of propositions with opaque language and multivariate consequences. It felt a little like defusing a bomb — vote incorrectly and you might just destabilize democracy.
Speaking of democracy, why the hell do we have propositions anyway? If you’re a high school history enthusiast, you may remember learning that in contrast to direct democracy, where the body politic votes directly on legislative measures, the United States is a republic. Essentially, the framers of the Constitution thought that the swaths of uneducated masses across the country were incapable of making political decisions and needed better educated, more intelligent (read: richer) representatives to do it for us. Thus, the American version of representative democracy, a system we use to date at all levels of government, was born.
Flash forward to the turn of the 20th century in California. Much like today, the political situation of the time was a hellscape controlled by corporate interests and an oligarchical, domineering group of rich elites. Railroad tycoons like Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker bought their way into government, pushing pro big business initiatives and extracting massive amounts of wealth built on the backs of the working class. In California, it wasn’t until 1911, with the election of Hiram Johnson as governor, that the system fundamentally changed. During his campaign, Johnson, historically an attorney, positioned himself as the champion of the working man — an anathema to the corruption and dominance of the railroad industry in the political sphere. After winning election, the newly-minted Governor Johnson was quick to make good on his promises and pushed through a constitutional amendment called Prop 7, establishing direct democracy in the state.
Since the days of yore when Hiram Johnson sought to give the common man the ability to fight back against corporate power, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the proposition experiment has failed. If you’re still unsure as to just why we should eliminate direct democracy, take a deep breath, keep reading, and let me be your guide.
Propositions don’t actually favor the common person — they still serve corporate interests. Hiram Johnson’s vision for the proposition system was a method for the average joe to hold their government accountable and push legislation that didn’t favor the ruling class. Unfortunately, that’s not at all how the system came to be. To get a proposition on the ballot, you need to get signatures by 5% of registered voters on the pending measure. Today, that means mobilizing almost a million registered voters, often requiring a significant volume of financial resources. Once the measure makes it on the ballot, lobbyists must spend even more money to ensure it garners the popular support it needs to pass. In 2020 only, over $500 million dollars have been spent campaigning for the propositions on the ballot, $200 million of which was spent by large corporations on Prop 22. Big corporations like Uber, Lyft, and Doordash bought their way onto the ballot, spent a small fortune in advertising, and are now poised to win fundamentally lifetime protection against government regulation. Does this sound like a check on corporate authority?
Propositions allow fringe groups to push discriminatory policies on to the ballot. The list of garbage propositions promulgated and pushed by bigots throughout the history of the state of California is mind boggling. To name a few, the state has seen measures to ban same-sex marriage, tear down affirmative action, and determine where people of different races can and can’t live. In particular, because only 5% of the electorate is required to sign off on measures for them to end up on the ballot, fringe movements can develop prejudiced legislation that ultimately can be signed into law. Though there are a handful of notable exceptions that do look to guarantee rights and fight for equality, the sheer volume of propositions that seek to expand oppression against individuals on the basis of racial, sexual, or socioeconomic demographics is deeply concerning.
The summaries of the propositions that voters read on their ballots are inadequate, poor representations of the full proposed measures. Consider the ballot text for Prop 22:
A “yes” vote supports this ballot initiative to define app-based transportation (rideshare) and delivery drivers as independent contractors and adopt labor and wage policies specific to app-based drivers and companies.
A “no” vote opposes this ballot initiative, meaning California Assembly Bill 5 (2019) could be used to decide whether app-based drivers are employees or independent contractors.
The measure isn’t clear about what “labor and wage policies specific to app-based drivers” means, or about the distinctions between independent contractors and full time employees in gig economy roles. Nowhere on the ballot is there discussion regarding large tech companies writing and pushing their own legislation, the violation of fundamental working rights, the lack of accountability amongst rideshare companies to care for the basic welfare of their workers, or the abhorrent, unsustainable race to the bottom that results in Uber/Lyft/Doordash failing to pay their workers living wages. Most importantly, nowhere on the ballot is the most troubling piece of all — the fact that any future regulation WHATSOEVER on these large app-based rideshare and delivery companies would require a 7/8ths supermajority agreement amongst the state senators, an almost impossible feat. Such sparse and vague descriptions of propositions exist up and down the ballot every two years and are completely unacceptable and antithetical to the fundamental goals of direct democracy.
The general public is not adequately qualified to contend with the far reaching, unpredictable externalities of convoluted legislation. The average voter can’t name a single right protected by the Bill of Rights, likely can’t name the three branches of government, isn’t sure whether or not they should vaccinate their kids, and can’t find New York on a map. They certainly do not, on average, have expertise in tax assessment transfers, know or care about dialysis/stem cell research, or deeply understand the positive and negative externalities of cash vs recidivism based bail systems. Why, then, should they be granted the ability to opine and affect legislative outcomes with the same impact as experts in their respective fields? At the very least, we (in the form of tax dollars) pay politicians to balance interests, do research and make the best decisions for their constituents. Even then, this process often requires months of research, advice from think tanks and other collections of experts, and a thorough analysis of the full host of outcomes that could result from the passage of a particular piece of legislation. Asking Joe Schmo from down the street to make a decision on any of these issues is irresponsible, unfair, and just downright stupid.
I propose that in 2022, there only be a single proposition on the ballot: the proposition to end direct democracy. To be precise, my proposition is to end propositions, and to move forward with a true representative government — for the people, by the people, and allowing the people to avoid having to get involved and or/ opine on the minutiae of legislative authorship.
Disagree with me? I’d love to hear from you.
