More democracy? Or too much?

Theodore Roosevelt - a figure from long, long ago, in a reality far, far away, when a Republican President could be a liberal reform leader who fought against corporate incursions on democracy - Teddy Roosevelt once said that the solution to the problems of democracy was ... more democracy.

Since at that time, neither black men nor women of any race had the right to vote in national elections (women could vote in some states), his idea was probably as correct at that time as my Jacksonian instincts would like it to be.

But the German Weimar Republic was considered a model European democracy in the 1920s, too. And it died in significant part because it was too democratic in some ways, e.g., small parties could win seats in Parliament with a tiny fraction of the vote. But I'll get all political-sciency about that some other time.

California has a real problem caused by the Progressive Era reforms of the initiative, referendum and recall. The idea behind them was to give the people a way to counter the entrenched power of money and corruption and concentrated corporate power, known as the "trusts" back then.

But Big Money can also corrupt the initiative, referendum and recall processes. And our Governor Schwarzenegger, who came to power in a cynical misuse of the recall process, is also finding out that he can be frustrated by the rigidities of the system that have been caused by decades of mediocre-to-bad laws made through initiatives.

Peter Schrag, one of the best columnists on California politics, wrote about this Wednesday.

He was discussing the failure of a bond referendum that Schwarzenegger had wanted to get on the ballot (Governor's bold 'build it' bond plan goes bust, Sacramento Bee 03/22/06):

Sacramento's political scorekeepers, assessing the great June primary infrastructure bond fizzle, last week chalked up another whiff for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But it's not all the governor's fault, nor that of the Democrats who pushed for low-income housing and urban parks, or of the latter-day New Dealers among Republicans who have learned to love big dams, even as the Democrats, now in thrall to environmentalists, oppose them.

The problem is a dysfunctional governmental system that's tied in knots by supermajority voting requirements and an electorate still convinced that it can get everything it wants without paying a cent more in taxes.

California reactionaries have succeeded over the years in making crippling restrictions on the power of government to do anything, constructive or otherwise. But that means private business interests are too often left free to do the "otherwise".

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