Theft of Democracy
Check out Bureaucrat by Day for an interesting post on the announcement by Darrell Issa that he will not be running for Governor of California. His financial contribution of nearly $2 million is credited with getting the stalled recall movement going. I posted a lengthy comment on Bureaucrat by Day, but wanted to post it here as a separate item, in slightly revised form.
The recall vote in California is emblematic of a growing movement to hijack democracy through seemingly democratic means. California’s recall election is only the latest and most visible example. California also had problems in the November 2000 general election with referenda that were put on the ballot by monied interests as an end run around the legislative process.
The recall of Davis is amazing in the simplicity with which it was pulled off. The number of signatures needed for a recall in California is set at just 12 % of the votes for Governor in the last election. That seems absurdly low (especially when that works out to only 6 % of registered voters). Why allow a democratic choice of a statewide electorate be subject to revision by a small minority individuals who can afford to finance a petition drive?
The Theft of Democracy by SharedThought, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.