PAPER NÚM. 12
(Papel nš12/Paper 12)
Electronic Democracy: Taking the Law into Our Own Hands?
Tracy Westen
President, Center for Governmental Studies and The Democracy Network
Two powerful trends are beginning to converge in the immediate future, possibly with explosive results, and this convergence may transform our American system of electoral democracy into something very different than that which we know today.
The First Trend: Growth of Interactive Media
Each new communications technology has altered the pattern of communication between citizens and their elected representatives. The hustings or raised platform created the political orator, radio sparked the fireside chat, and television launched the candidate debate and the 30-second commercial. We are now experiencing the rapid emergence of interactive digital communication - the Internet - which will soon include seamless combinations of video, voice and data. Because democracy is itself an interactive form of government, the emergence of interactive communications technologies have the potential to transform the architecture of American democracy.
The Second Trend: From Representative to Direct Democracy
The second trend - the movement from Western-styled representative democracy to new hybrid forms of direct democracy - is less visible yet potentially more profound. During the past 200 years, the structure of American representative government has already moved toward the direct empowerment of individual voters. The President, originally picked by the Electoral College, which in turn was elected by state legislators, is today elected directly by citizens. Presidential term limits, the Presidential veto, election of Senators by popular vote (not by state legislators), the expansion of voting to minorities, women and 18-year-olds - all have strengthened the individual voter.
At the same time, representative government itself is exhibiting signs of distress. In 1964, 62% of the people polled trusted government to "do the right thing most of the time"; by 1996 only 13% agreed. A 1992 LA Times poll reported that people think that government will waste your money, that nothing government does helps them directly, that special interests get privileged deals, and that you can't believe the government's promises. A 1994 California poll reported that two-thirds of respondents thought it common for representatives to take bribes, 75% thought "the state was run by a few business interests rather than for the benefit of all people," 50% thought that "the government pretty much ignores citizens and pays little attention to what they think," and 89% thought that officials pay more attention to campaign contributors than constituents.
Several trends suggest that this lack of public confidence is with the institution of representative government itself, not with current elected leaders:
Growth of Ballot Initiatives. The ballot initiative - classic "direct democracy" - allows citizens to draft proposed laws, collect qualifying numbers of signatures, place initiatives on the ballot and enact them directly by majority vote - and thus circumvent elected representatives. Since 1900, twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have adopted the ballot initiative process. Four more are currently considering it. Recently initiatives reaching the ballot jumped 400% over previous years.
In California, for example, voters have used ballot initiatives to reduce property taxes, impose capital punishment, restrict gift and inheritance taxes, recommend a nuclear freeze, adopt a state lottery, limit tort damages, regulate toxic materials, restrict automobile insurance costs, raise tobacco taxes, support rapid transit, adopt campaign finance reform, impose term limits, abolish affirmative action, restrict immigration, partially decriminalize marijuana, adopt three-strikes sentencing, end bilingual education, and permit gaming on Indian reservations.
Growth of Campaign Contributions. Campaign contributions are a form of "direct democracy," particularly when they are given between elections to influence pending legislation. The contributor affects legislation directly by casting a check-book ballot for or against legislation without waiting for the next election. In California, campaign spending has jumped 5,000% in the past forty years, and comparable patterns are emerging at the national level.
Growth of Public Opinion Polling. Polling has jumped 1500% in the last fifteen years. Political "leaders" are now public opinion "followers," waiting for the overnight polls before they take a position, thus giving citizens a new source of "indirect" control over policy and legislation.
Growth of Term Limits. Term limits are also an attack on representative government. Despite an elected representative's expertise and experience, voters are saying they will inevitably become "corrupted" by the governmental process and must be replaced. Growth of Disintermediation. The elimination of intermediaries is occurring at an accelerating pace. Department stores are being replaced by malls, malls by on-line shopping, stock brokers by on-line trading, surface mail by e-mail. Political parties used to select candidates, raise money, design platforms, conduct campaigns, get out the vote and distribute patronage. Today, these activities are handled directly by candidates. The public is also seeking ways to circumvent their elected representatives and exercise political power directly.
It is unlikely that pure direct democracy will ever be used by voters to decide every legislative question. If pure direct democracy were in place, voters would have before them thousands of city, state and federal legislative decisions a year. Instead, government decisions will increasingly involve electronic dialogues between elected representatives and participating citizens. Voters will use interactive communications technologies to debate and then vote directly on major public policy questions. Elected representatives and legislative bodies will follow up with modifications, corrections and smaller decisions of implementation.
The challenge is not how to stop this shift to electronic direct democracy - for it does not seem stoppable - but how to shape it, to impose upon it electronic "checks and balances," to preserve the traditional democratic goals of fairness, truth, trust, deliberation and balance in the coming electronic age.
(Commentary written for NetElection.org and published on the site the 26th January 2000).
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