Mark Anderson in previous submission: > Well, it's hard not to vote for them when they change their minds after the > election. As I stated above, I believe Rybak was elected partially because > he seemed to be against spending taxpayer dollars on large projects that > only had indirect benefits to the people in the city. It was SSB's support > for many of these projects that led to the end of her regime. So we DID > vote against them, but it didn't seem to have any effect.
David Greene: So the next question is, "how will you hold RT accountable?" Mark Anderson again: Real good question David. You're the one who thinks that representative system can give us what we want, so I'd like to get your answer. Rybak is apparently now in favor of public financing of the stadium, and maybe not as opposed to other similar projects as he made it appear in his first campaign. His main competitor actually voted for the stadium financing and has generally made a career of supporting such boondoggles. The dark horses are not acceptable because of other issues (at least that's my understanding, I'd be glad to vote for a dark horse, but my favored candidate has never won in this city). So how do you hold a candidate responsible for broken promises (or at least broken implications), when all the other choices are worse? David Greene again: If we do that we are choosing a very different system of government than we have now. I oppose I&R because it is unwieldy. These are complex issues that, quite frankly, we don't have time to research and become experts on. I've been working on transportation during pretty much all of my spare time for the last nine months. It's _extremely_ complex and I would not want public transportation budgets to go to referendums. I certainly don't understand all the complexities of state money, federal matching dollars, impact studies, etc. I have a pretty good grasp of why a sales tax is a good way to fund public transportation but it took a lot of work to get there. If the majority of people want a fundamentally different system of government for our state (direct democracy), let's put it up for a vote as a constitutional amendment. Let's not try to slip it in the back door. California operates with a great deal of I&R. Everyone should research how that system works before proposing it here. Mark Anderson: I agree that I & R are definitely unwieldy. They can only be used for major issues; and only for those issues that can be answered with a yes or no answer (but now that I think about it, a multiple choice referendum might work, even though I've never seen it tried). Public stadium financing is a perfect example of a question suitable for I & R. Initiative should be made hard enough so that we don't have 50 questions on every ballot, but easy enough so that genuine citizenship objection can have some effect. I think getting 20% of the signatures of registered voters would be a good target, but that's just a guess. The complexity of issues is a poor reason not to have I & R. Life is complex, but we still expect everyone to be allowed to make their own decisions. Should people be forced to go into professions determined by the state, because it is too complex for the average person to make the correct choice? I assume your answer would be no, because individual freedom is more important than the possibility of making a mistake? For the same reason, people have the right to make the policy decisions for their own government. There is nothing stopping people from voting in a referendum based on what the experts say who have studied the issues in depth, such as in your example with public transportation. If the majority of people think that the expert is full of crap, they should have the right to vote the other way. It is more important that people run their own government than that they be right in their decisions. IMO, that's what democracy is about. I don't understand your comment about slipping it in the back door. What are you talking about? Mark V Anderson Bancroft REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
