I’d say it a little differently: “Referendum-based legislation is little more than a dice throw.”
It *is * completely possible for representative democracy to work and work well. But the public needs to take it seriously. Which happens a lot in some places in some times and not at all in other places in other times.
Link to the Congressional Research Service document on the status of Puerto Rico, just updated to show the latest result (PDF). This is the offically nonpartisan document that the MoC’s are supposed to look up if they don’t know about it. But like Hell they do.
That IS a problem. A lot of the US public is entirely out of touch on the PR situation and thus highly vulnerable to whatever shows up first on their Bubble Feed or the first thing they hear their fave Rant Radio host or late night news satire wag say about it. And as I mentioned elsewhere a lot of congresscritters will just adopt the bullet points their favorite Bubble ThinkTank sends them.
One thing I am pretty damn sure is as we speak there are people in different rooms already sending out breathless messages to the effect of:
[ul]
[li]“The Democrats want to make Puerto Rico a state by trickery, to force Americans to learn Spanish and raise your taxes to support it! Call your Congressman to oppose statehood! SEND MONEY!!!”[/li][li]“The Republicans want to make Puerto Rico a state by trickery, to force Puerto Ricans to speak English and cut out all their budget! Call your Congressman to oppose statehood! SEND MONEY!!!”[/li][li]“The Democrats want to prevent Puerto Rico statehood by trickery, so they can establish socialism there first! Call your Congressman to support statehood! SEND MONEY!!!”[/li][li]“The Republicans want to prevent Puerto Rico statehood by trickery, because they hate brown skinned Latinos! Call your Congressman to support statehood! SEND MONEY!!!”[/li][/ul]
Because, I’ve seen appeals that are almost all those.
No.
So do you think your generalized comment on referendums is particularly appropriate in this thread? I mean, they generally have outstanding voter turnout in Puerto Rico and this vote showed strong party discipline. And it was over a long publicly debated subject that most Puerto Ricans have formed an opinion on. You really think this vote was a dice roll?
To be frank, your earlier comment was a good example of a pet peeve of mine. Cynicism as a substitute for intelligence.
You’ve just crushed the dreams of handfuls of Californians. Handfuls!
I apologize if you thought I was being cynical. That was not my point at all. Ref my sig for my attitude on cynical.
There are practical problems getting a referendum (and it’s officially sanctioned and (ideally) neutral explanations) clear and concise enough to capture the real tradeoffs and real decision points. There are practical problems separating votes on the question at issue from votes on general satisfaction / dissatisfaction with the current state of politics in the jurisdiction.
Party discipline is a fine thing. If it’s in the service of sound parties. If a party is being cynical, e.g. gumming up the works for tactical advantage, then discipline can be a net negative for the society.
The relatively high voter participation in PR politics does speak to an engaged electorate. Which is almost always a good thing.
I’ll agree with **Chronos **however that had the boycotters instead voted their conscience, we’d have a much clearer picture of that 75% of the electorate. Right now all we can honestly conclude about them is: “_______________”. A lot of ink will be spilled and bits sent flying as partisans paint whatever they choose into that blank. That’s not helpful.
Said another way, in a 4-way question, 27% might be a winner. It’s the misplaced binary nature of our political thinking that says 50%+1 is the same as 100% that I argue against.
See in this case the 1998 vote, with 51% for “none of the above”.
Except for those in whose economic or political interest it is to leave things as they are.
Then there should have been a choice “leave things as they are”. And the people who want that should show up and vote for that.
Then they should actually vote for that (i.e. the third option). That’s why you still put the incumbent on the ballot.
By not voting, all they did was effectively split their vote three ways. As in, they are all unknowns, with a 33.3% chance of voting for each option.
Ah but you see: it is in their practical everyday interest to leave things as they are but NOT, come next election-to-office campaign, to have it recorded they supported an officially sanctioned stance that “this is all there is and all you’re getting”. They want to be able to report to their base that the only thing keeping them from making the commonwealth great again, is those pesky statehooders’ dirty tricks.
The polls earlier on were forecasting that among likely voters, statehood was headed for 66%. The political decision of the opponents was that they’d have to claim that the game was rigged and their acceptable alternative excluded, and to do that they could not participate supporting the “current territorial subordination” definition.