Referenda

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Referenda

In his editorial in the April 24,2002 edtion of The Virginia Gazette, my friend and colleague Bill O’Donovan wondered why I was so worked up about the transportation referendum which the people of Hampton Roads will have to vote on in November. “By throwing the roads decision to the voters,” he claimed, “they will decide their own fate.”

To begin with, we’re not living in 5^th cent. BC Athens, where all citizens formed an Assembly and voted on issues important to the state. This may work fine in a relatively small city state, but it is a totally unmanageable arrangement for countries or states whose populations run into the millions.

Hence we have opted for a representative democracy, in which the people delegate power to their elected representatives to carry out the business of governing. And this, I submit, is when the voters “decide their own fate.”

Unfortunately, all too frequently of late legislators have decided that, when hot button issues are introduced, they would rather put their heads under their desks and pass the decision along to the voters. This is especially true when highly contested social issues, such as gay civil unions or the medical use of marijuana come to the fore. Rather than listening to the testimony involved on both sides and making a decision, lawmakers would rather skirt what could be politically damaging decisions and force the people to make a choice.

The problem with this, as I indicated in my column, is that, for the most part, the people are uninformed about the ramifications of their vote. Indeed this is the very problem that philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle had with their form of democracy. When the people are forced to make such decisions, they are easily manipulated by demagogues on both sides of the issue who appeal more to their emotions than to their minds.

And so it is with the transportation referendum. Unlike the people, who know but the barest bones of this proposal, our legislators in Richmond have listened to hours of testimony relative to such things as how the proposed projects would be affected by the Clean Air and Water Act, or what enviromental problems would occur in conjunction with new construction. And they have apprently been informed by budget experts about how much all this is going to cost. So why can’t they make a decision?

The reason, of course, is because the referendum involves raising the sales tax. And because the Republicans are in control of the legislature and desperately want to protect their anti-tax stances, they simply can’t face going to their constituents and telling them that they’re going to raise taxes to build new roads and tunnels or to develop a high speed rail system in the area. Hence they dump the decision in the laps of the people of Hampton Roads and tell them to “decide their own fate.”

Even more troubling is that referenda such as this tend to fragment, or balkanize, the state. We now have transportation referenda proposed for Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia, each of which has different stipulations. Theoretically even more referenda could be proposed for the areas in southwestern Virginia that have been hard hit as a result of the loss of jobs in furniture making or because other regional industries that have moved overseas. Instead of uniform taxation, we will eventually wind up with a different set of tax rules for every major area of the state. Our tax codes now are in a shambles, and certainly all these regional tax differentials aren’t going to make things any better.

But most injurious is the fact that we seem, with the issuance of regional referenda, to have lost completely the idea that this is the COMMONWEALTH of Virginia, and that gains or losses in one part of the state affect the state as a whole. The fact is that people from Richmond or even Charlottesville use the state highways, interstates and tunnels in Hampton Roads all the time. Yet they’re not voting on the referendum. And they won’t be paying a higher sales tax if the referendum passes, unless they purchase something in Hampton Roads.

No, this is a Commonwealth issue, and those governing the Commonwealth should have the guts to acknowledge that our roads and tunnels are badly in need of help from the state.

But if our legislators are intent on governing by referenda, why not let the people vote on everything? Let them have a referendum on the state income tax. Do we want it or not? Or perhaps we should have a referendum dealing with a theocratic public school system. Or even better, a referendum on the salaries we pay our legislators. Perhaps a referendum making Baptist the state religion would be in order. Let the referenda flow to the public and let them exercise their emotional reactions in the form of a vote on all major issues.

But this, of course, is patently ridiculous. Or is it? The more we resort to referenda, the closer we get not to democracy, but to mobocracy.

Let the people decide their fate, then, at the polls, and let them elect representatives who are willing to tackle thorny issues, be they financial or otherwise, and, who, after much discussion and reflection, honestly report to their constituents what must be done. Rather than divide the state, let us return to that concept of commonality which should ensure better lives for all her residents.

April 25, 2002