Those Opposed to Democracy

A pair of columns skeptical of democracy dominated the Opinion page of Sunday's Minneapolis Star Tribune.  Columnist Lori Sturdevant decries the surplus of democracy in Minnesota, ("Punting the tough issues to the people:  Is there such a thing as too much direct democracy?  Ask California.  Ask schools.")

Her thesis is that referenda on school levies and stadium taxes show a failure of leadership by elected officials.  To be clear, by failure she means the failure to raise taxes, writing, "This is a case of legislators running amok with their desire to dodge blame for higher taxes."

As readers of this blog will know, I favor direct democracy.  Yes, we have a Republic, with representative democracy.  But whenever the people vote on an issue, I believe that the outcome is, by definition, the "right" outcome.

Former third-party candidate for Lt. Governor, Jim Mulder, writes about the redundancy of all the overlapping levels of government in Minnesota.  I am very receptive to arguments in favor of government redesign.  But I think that Mr. Mulder is attacking the problem from the wrong end.  Basically, Mr. Mulder thinks we have too many counties, with some including more than a million people, but some with just a few thousand.

He makes some good observations regarding overlap.  I have often wondered why we have local Soil and Water Districts and a state Board of Water and Soil Resources.  However, he believes archaic the "Jeffersonian principle of democracy--that no one should live more than a day's horse ride from the county courthouse." 

The implication here is that any political arrangement supported with an argument related to horse travel must be discarded as hopelessly out of date.  Well, how about this, political boundaries should be small enough that the people governed together are likely to know one another.

My county, Hennepin, holds more than 1.1 million people.  I cannot believe that densely populated neighborhoods in Minneapolis share much in common with semi-rural areas at the County's western edge.  Yet all are governed by the same County board.  I would argue that residents would benefit from having the jurisdiction split into three or four entities, grouping populations with like interests.

The actual Jeffersonian principle has nothing to do with horse travel but that "the government closest to the people is the most responsive" (1787).  Mr. Mulder would have the government move away from the people, trading responsiveness for some notion of "efficiency."