The recent proposal to split California into six states shows the problem with ballot initiatives as a means of shaping public policy.
I guess we are getting into political silly season already because a venture capitalist named Tim Draper recently announced a drive to split California into six states via a ballot initiative that would presumably appear in on the ballot in 2016.
I have to agree with the critics of this plan. It seems like a huge waste of time and energy that will either accomplish nothing, or result in political chaos. Indeed the plan itself is incredibly arbitrary. Why six state instead of three, or sixteen? And why should Draper’s map be the one that counts?
The problem here as I see it, is the attempts by people like Draper to rewrite the rules of democracy to favor their ideas, because those ideas are “better.” But whose to say those ideas are necessarily better at all? My “better” idea is that California should tax venture capitalists more because they waste their money on silly ideas. Why can’t California’s get a chance to vote on that?
The problems get even worse on a practical level. Most voters are partisans that follow the lead of their party leaders, so lots of people might for or against the plan just because its what their party wants them to do. Is that a good reason to split up a state? And low information voters might vote for it just because they are mad at the political status quo, not because they’ve thought about it or have a strong opinion. Making the result of the election not necessarily proof that that is what the voters “really wanted.”
And this has been happening a lot in California in recent times in form of ballot initiatives, attempts at large scale redistricting, and a new complex “top two” system of voting. But rather than creating a technocratic wonderland where politics is taken out of politics, new political systems dominated by political insiders emerged instead.
Meanwhile California’s long running problems remain. I guess pretty square congressional districts don’t automatically fix everything.
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