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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume 4
Fall 2005
Polemical Hacks, Bastardized Gonzo,
and the Death Of Democracy - Page 8
By Eric Kaufmann
The large number of propositions passed have created more problems than they have solved, as the referendums have overtaken the budgeting process. "Today 85 percent of the California state budget is outside of the legislature's or the governor's control. . . . .The vast majority of the state's budget is 'pre-assigned.' In California today real power resides nowhere" (Zakaria 193). This is because legislators have been given the responsibility to implement a plethora of new policies, but they have not been given the power to allocate funds effectively or shift resources to respond to changing situations. What follows in this situation is the removal of expert oversight in policy areas, and the development of referendums that simultaneously require officials "to cut taxes and yet improve services" (Zakaria 194). In addition, accountability to the public is lost, as legislators no longer have direct control of the state's finances. Voters are left with little basis upon which to judge their representatives, as it is becoming impossible to tell if funding problems are due to issues at the local level, the legislative level, or at the referendum level, which leads to further dissatisfaction with the political process. According to Zakaria, " California 's state government and its legislature have among the lowest public-approval ratings among American states" (195). This in a state widely regarded as one of the best run in the nation during the 1950s and 60s.
Although the referendum process is obviously flawed, civic discourse is not a lost cause, provided a real method of informing the public can be utilized. A study done in Great Britain - mirroring similar studies conducted by the Kettering Foundation's National Issues Forums in the United States - on deliberative democracy confirmed that citizens were initially too uninformed to understand policy, but with proper technical support and expertise they could become engaged in crafting bipartisan solutions. A cross-sample of the British electorate was provided with facts on crime, along with appropriate experts to provide interpretation, and was given three days to discuss and formulate viewpoints. Researchers found that they engaged with and struggled over the issues, and that in the end their opinions did shift. The interesting part of this is that researchers noted it was "not that people changed their minds from very set positions, as much as that those original positions were not that deeply held. . . . Much of the process was their coming to grips with the issues" (Durrant 43). It is not that people are disinterested, or that moneyed lobbyists control legislators, or that political campaigns mislead voters and drive them away. People are interested and can be educated to make good decisions, lobbyists and interests groups provide specialized knowledge and strive for responsibility in placing issues on the agenda, and campaigning, positive and negative, serves voters in laying bare a candidate's legislative qualifications and character. The problem is that citizens are misinformed in their daily lives by the media, and subsequently become disenchanted with and alienated from the political process.
How did it come to pass that the media, an institution which claims to provide the primary forum for civic discourse, has become the reason that such a dialogue has failed to materialize? The answer is that the media is not a single institution, and in fact has no formal arrangements to ensure that any part of its mythical mandate from the Founding Fathers is completed. Nor was the media designed to carry out any specific functions that it now claims as its own. Instead, the present state of media is due to sporadic, market-directed development, and only haphazardly provides public services. Graber states plainly that, "the media developed in this manner primarily because most were organized as self-sustaining private enterprises dependent for survival on earning sufficient money to pay for the costs of the enterprise" (272). Advertising became highly valued, and the sensational sound bites of generalist reporters and the new pamphleteers were found to sell better than policy analysis. And the public, in abandoning discourse, has the idea that change should be immediate and simple, and the press is complicit in promoting this idea, by "[extolling] immediate results and unbending leadership," not recognizing that "these are rare and typically problematic in a political system based on an elaborate system of checks and balances that is designed to foster compromise and deliberation" (Patterson 18).