Let the People Decide (Part II): Direct Democracy--Or No Democracy?
Direct Democracy may be the only way to save democracy in the U.S.
This is the second of a three-part series on direct democracy. The first part is Let the People Decide (Part I): Democracy is Coming.
The majority of Americans want abortion to be legal, support climate change legislation and the transition to renewable energy, want stronger gun control laws, want universal health care, a higher minimum wage, subsidized child care, guaranteed paid sick leave, higher taxes on the wealthy, affordable colleges, a more fair society, and a whole lot more.
In other words, the majority of America wants a country in which all people can flourish.
But none of this stands a chance to happen because of the U.S. Senate—the Senate is known as the place where popular legislation goes to die.
This is no accident—it’s fully by design.
As I’ve stated in prior essays, this design of the Senate is known as the tyranny of the minority, and it’s something that is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Thanks to the Senate, the minority—which is the wealth class—are taken care of, while everyone else is left to pick up the crumbs.
It didn’t have to be this way. In 1776, 11 years before the U.S. Constitution was written, the state of Pennsylvania wrote their own state constitution that gave much more rights to the common people.
Their constitution set term limits, had a weak executive branch, established elections every year, gave the right to vote to everyone, abolished debtor’s prison, and included many other egalitarian rights.
But when the writers of the U.S. Constitution got together in 1787, they saw what Pennsylvania did and looked at it as an example of what not to do.
A government of the people, by the people, and for the people, which was the crux of Pennsylvania’s Constitution, was just too much for the writers of the U.S. Constitution, and so they made sure there was no role for the regular people to have much of a say.
Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson are two of the great revolutionary egalitarians of the American Revolution, and it is their ideas that are enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
But neither Paine nor Jefferson had a hand in writing the U.S. Constitution—at the time of its writing, Paine had returned to his native England, and Jefferson was living in Paris, serving as the Minister of France.
While living in France, Jefferson became immersed in the ideas of the European Enlightenment, and especially of the writings of the French-Swiss philosopher, writer, and composer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
It was Rousseau’s ideas that inspired Jefferson to co-write, while in France with the Marquis de Lafayette, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which along with the 1215 Magna Carta, the 1689 English Bill of Rights, the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, and the 1789 United States Bill of Rights, are the great Enlightenment documents that have helped define the nature of democracy.
Rousseau died in 1778, so he did not live to see the French Revolution, but his ideas have continued to inspire those who love the ideals of democracy.
Rousseau believed in the idea of direct democracy, that democracy’s aims needed to be egalitarian, and for this to work, the people had to have a direct say in how government and the policies that government aspired to were conducted.
Because Jefferson was living in France at the time of the writing of the U.S. Constitution, he had no way to get his egalitarian leanings and ideas on direct democracy embedded into the Constitution.
But once the U.S. Constitution was written, he had certain strong opinions on it—he felt it was not meant to be a document for all eternity.
Jefferson believed that a constitution should be rewritten every generation, and that a constitution that endures over time preferences the generation that wrote it.
He wrote to Madison and said, “The earth belongs to the living. The dead have neither powers nor rights over it.” He continued, “No society can make a perpetual constitution.”
Thomas Jefferson would be rolling in his grave if he knew what has become of democracy in the U.S. The Constitution is seen as a document set in stone, as if handed down from God.
Since the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787, there have been 2200 constitutions written around the world, an average of 15 constitutions per nation, or roughly one constitution per nation every 15 years.
Most constitutions die young, and only a handful last longer than 50 years.
And then there’s the U.S. The U.S. has had two constitutions, the original Articles of Confederation, written in 1776 and lasting 11 years, and the current constitution, which is 235 years old and counting.
As constitutional scholar Sanford Levinson has said, “a substantial responsibility for the defects of our polity lies in the Constitution itself.”
There are ways to amend the Constitution—a Constitutional Convention can be called by 34 states, or if an amendment if passed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and two-thirds of the state legislatures, the amendment is added to the Constitution.
But you have better chances of catching lightening in a bottle than seeing the Constitution amended. The last time an amendment was added to the Constitution was the 27th amendment, which passed in 1992, and was related to the compensation members of Congress receive.
The prior amendment, the 26th, passed in 1971, and lowered the voting age to 18.
If you hold your breath until you’re blue in the face waiting for the machinations of the political process to beneficially change the laws, you better have an ambulance at your beck and call.
It’s primarily because of the Senate that democracy is sputtering in America—it’s truly the biggest impediment to democracy. As I said above, the Senate is known as the place where good legislation goes to die.
Of all the democracies in the world that have bicameral national legislatures (the U.S.’s bicameral legislature is composed of a lower chamber, the House of Representatives, and an upper chamber, the Senate), the U.S. is the only nation that has an upper chamber (the Senate) that has the ability to grind democracy to a halt.
Most democracies with a legislature comprised of an upper and lower chamber have given their lower chambers the power to craft legislation and have a weaker upper chamber.
For instance, take England, and their House of Lords. England’s upper chamber has limited authority to veto legislation or make policy.
Or Canada’s upper chamber, the Senate. Their power is limited to amending legislation that comes out of the House of Commons. It can reject legislation, but it rarely exercises that power.
Or Australia’s upper chamber, their Senate. The Australian Senate has more power to block legislation from their House, but the chamber is more democratic than the American Senate because of its proportional makeup, as compared to the U.S. Senate’s one state, two senators structure, which leads to the disproportionate makeup where, for example, California, the most populous state with close to 40 million residents, has equal say with Wyoming, the least populous state, with 580,000 residents.
To help achieve a democracy in America that more fairly represents the will of the people, the Senate needs to have limited authority.
Constitutional scholar Sanford Levinson, who I quoted above as saying “a substantial responsibility for the defects of our polity lies in the Constitution itself,” has proposed limiting the scope of power of the Senate to confirming presidential nominations for office.
He has proposed creating a third House of Congress, what he calls a National Assembly, composed of 200 members. Once hundred and fifty of these members would be elected from ten equally proportioned regions of the U.S., with each region electing 15 members. Of the remaining 50 members, 35 would be former officials of government, and the remaining 15 would be citizens selected at random, by region, from the public at large.
Levinson’s approach is one among numerous innovative ideas to make the U.S. more democratic. Ultimately, the only way to change the U.S. Constitution to get ideas such as Levinson’s to become reality, and in the process, get laws passed that benefit the common good and reflect the will of the great majority of people, is through direct democracy.
Here’s an example of how one country changed their system of governance through direct democracy.
On March 18, 2014 in Taiwan, thousands of young activists occupied the Parliament, outraged over the government’s secret negotiations with China over a free trade agreement.
The protests escalated over the next few weeks, with its peak occurring on March 30, when somewhere between 350,000 and half a million people filled the streets surrounding the legislature.
The protestors called themselves the Sunflower Movement, and their peaceful protests were in response to the lack of transparency in the government.
By early April, the Sunflower Movement got assurances from the Taiwanese government that they would meet the Movement’s demands, and called the protests off.
From these demonstrations, and the government’s willingness to work with the protestors, a new form of government was formed in Taiwan—what is known as vTaiwan, which stands for Virtual Taiwan.
Taiwan would begin a form of governance that would become the world’s first open, digital democracy—a form of direct democracy—and Sunflower Movement activist Audrey Tang was named the country’s digital minister.
By 2016, vTaiwan was in place.
The goal was to make the government more open and responsive to the will of the Taiwanese population.
This was done by the government joining forces with civic-minded hackers and coders, known as g0v, to create more transparency through the use of open-source tools.
Many of the civic hackers believed in radical transparency, that government should operate in full daylight and that everyone who is affected by a decision should have a say in the outcome.
Using online platforms and other digital approaches, regular Taiwanese citizens are able to both propose public policy and express their opinion on policy initiatives and reforms.
In essence, vTaiwan’s version of direct democracy is one that crowdsources democracy and uses the wisdom of the crowd in a wholly collaborative manner.
The beauty of a system like this is that without direct citizen participation, the only time people have a say in the national political process is when they go to vote, which only happens every few years.
But if people have a say in the practices of government and the making of laws at all times, the populace feels more connected to the way government is run and the politicians they elect.
Another example of direct democracy is what happened in Iceland in 2011, when, after their country’s economy was wrecked by the banking industry during the financial crisis of 2008, they attempted to write a new constitution by crowdsourcing democracy.
Iceland wanted to encourage as many voices as possible to participate in the writing, using the tools of technology to assist in the process. More than 3600 people from across the country offered commentary and ideas, and the Constitutional Assembly that was formed to codify these ideas took them into account.
If it can happen in Taiwan and Iceland, it can happen anywhere. The tools are there to make the U.S. a more responsive, and direct, democracy.
One key tool is a software program called Pol.is, at https://pol.is/home. Pol.is is the creation of Seattle-based technology expert Colin Megill, who, with some friends, created it after the events of Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring in 2011.
Pol.is is an open source program that operates in real-time, and is used for gathering, analyzing, and understanding what large groups of people think in their own words, enabled by advanced statistics and machine learning.
The software is designed to allow anyone to generate proposals, share information, and hold polls.
Another technological innovation is called Advisory Voting, at https://www.nationaltownsquare.us/. The brainchild of Richard Lang, it is a method that allows any citizen to vote through their smartphone on any issue that is proposed by other members of Advisory Voting.
While Advisory Voting is non-binding on elected officials, it gives the citizenry a chance to vote on any issue. Once in effect, it will provide ongoing public input on pertinent issues.
Even in all the indirect democracies of the world, except the U.S., the population is better represented and has a better chance of having their voices heard. That’s because all the indirect democracies of the world are multiparty democracies, which allows for a diverse and multitude of voices to be represented by all the varied political parties.
The U.S. has a two political party duopoly, and these two parties are fully incapable of representing the broad and diverse population of the U.S.
It is clear democracy is not working in the U.S., and the problem is inherent in the structure of the government—especially Congress. And even more specifically, as I have said, the biggest obstacle is the U.S. Senate.
The only way to reform this flawed structure is through the process of direct democracy—the system is not going to reform itself.
As I stated in my prior essay, Let the People Decide (Part I): Democracy is Coming, the two important aspects of a direct democracy are deliberative democracy, as expressed by a Citizens Assembly; and a participatory democracy, in which citizens have a direct say in matters.
I mentioned how the only nation on the planet with a direct, participatory democracy is Switzerland, which allows any citizen to propose an amendment to the constitution, and if enough signatures are accrued on a petition, it then goes up for a national vote. If a majority of Switzerland’s citizens vote for the amendment, and a majority of Switzerland’s cantons also votes for it, it it then becomes enshrined as law.
Switzerland has a national government consisting of a bicameral parliament. The parliament appoints the Federal Council, a seven-member panel that oversees the country’s everyday affairs and operates on a consensual basis. From the Federal Council, each of the seven members serve a term of one year as president of Switzerland.
That’s a remarkable system, one that runs on consensus and without a strong president/executive branch.
That’s what a direct, participatory democracy can get you: a much more sane and humane system that operates based on the will of the people.
How can things change in the U.S., which as I mentioned in my prior essay, has become an oligarchy—one that threatens the very life blood of democracy?
Just as in Taiwan, the people may have to start large-scale protests to put pressure on government to reform it. Along with that, the formation of a national Citizens Assembly, as Ireland did to reform their Constitution, will be necessary.
If a system of direct democracy isn’t installed soon in the U.S., it might just be time to kiss democracy goodbye. If that is the case, expect the U.S. to become an illiberal democracy, like Hungary.
And speaking of Hungary, Viktor Orban, the president of Hungary and person most responsible for turning Hungary into an illiberal democracy, will be a keynote speaker in August of this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference—known as CPAC—in Texas.
Orban recently bashed Western Europeans for “mixing with non-Europeans,” and said Hungarians “do not want to become a mixed race.”
The reason he will be speaking at the CPAC Texas event is because many of the far-right look up to Hungary’s illiberal democracy as the model for what they want America to become.
But America is better than that. And to revive the American ideal, direct democracy might just be the only way.