Time for a National Referendum
Our country gives presidents too much freedom to govern according to their own agenda. We place more constraints on the chief executives of our states than we place on the chief executive of the country. Governors don’t just deal with state legislatures. They must also work within the framework of laws established through the referendum process.
Ballot initiatives give state voters a chance to directly intervene in everything from school funding to stem cell research. But we have no referendum at the federal level. And this affords the president and Congress tremendous leeway in establishing national priorities.
Lately Democrats and Republicans have taken to offering a vastly different set of plans for the country. When control of Congress switches, funding for various agencies changes dramatically. Some programs get dropped or lose their funding. There’s no continuity. Long term strategies have no chance in this environment.
Popular initiatives are no cure all. Voter enacted regulations often face court challenges and can be difficult to enforce consistently. Voters have a limited capacity to weigh new laws in light of potential conflict with existing legislation. That requires the special expertise of the legislative aides who draft bills which later become law. An advisory referendum would work better at the federal level.
The National Defense Strategy for example, is a set of guidelines written by the executive branch which describe the steps our country will take to defend itself. The current strategy stresses our right to pre-emption, and is something of a departure from our traditional stance. It’s not clear that a majority of Americans support such an aggressive approach. A national referendum on the matter would set the strategy according to standards adopted by the voters.
national referendum, election cycle, President, Congress, chief executive, national defense strategy, pre-emption, referendum, ballot initiatives, long term strategies
November 21st, 2007 at 11:11 pm
What citizens need to come up with good ballot initiatives is what legislators get: public hearings, expert testimony, amendments and reports -on what they’re going to vote on!
The most evolved and radical -and yet, doable- proposal for better and national ballot initiatives is from the irascible Presidential candidate and famed former Senator Mike Gravel, who released the Pentagon Papers while filibustering until the Vietnam draft was ended.
Registered voters can now vote to ratify the National Initiative for Democracy at http://Vote.org, much as citizens -NOT the existing 13 legislatures- ratified the Constitution at the Constitutional Conventions!
November 21st, 2007 at 11:13 pm
I wasn’t clear above: Voters need the info legislators get to vote more wisely on initiatives; and citizens who are designing initiatives need the deliberative process too.
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:36 am
[…] of power since then. With the battle scared countries along the coast now holding free elections, democracy is on the rise in […]