A GENUINELY DUMB IDEA
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 12:43PM 
OPB’s morning talk show “Think Out Loud” laid another egg. They interviewed the Mayor of Silverton, Oregon who advocates moving legislators out of Salem and back to their districts to do the people’s business online and via teleconferencing. The presumed advantage of this idea is to enable the citizenry to have more direct access to their legislators on a regular basis. Well like many ideas, this one sounds good in theory but would be an unmitigated disaster in practice.
http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/legislating-home/
Ironically, two callers pointed out the problem.
The first caller was a woman from the mayor’s city who complained that getting access to local officials is not easily done despite geographic proximity. Anyone familiar with local government knows that attendance by the public is often sparse. City councils, school boards, county commissions and special districts meet at often-inconvenient times for citizens to attend because we are juggling job and family obligations. Few people have either the time or the interest to be involved. On top of this local officials have their own self-selected networks they listen to anyway.
The other caller who had lots of experience as a corporate manager with teleconferencing all over the USA and world noted that it often takes face-to-face meetings to cut to the chase and clear the air to find a solution. Governance whether political or corporate requires the time to debate and sort out ideas. This is most efficiently done face-to-face not via e-mail, the World Wide Web or teleconferencing. Having participated in teleconferencing one doesn’t pick up the nuances of the discussion and comments are telescoped to fit the time limits. That does not lead to good decisions.
Shifting legislative decision-making beyond Salem and the capitol building is a bad idea for other reasons. Let me list them:
Legislators and their constituents aside from their own self-interests and/or pet issues are not very well informed as any election cycle proves time and again. The level of political discourse in the US is so diminished that submitting yourself to the cacophony of local opinion is to submit oneself to the lowest common denominator of information. It’s necessary but not sufficient to do the job a being a well-informed legislator. And keep in mind being a legislator is not simply being a weathervane of local opinion. When one votes on budgets, civil rights or on environmental issues – these are not “local” issues per se but state issues sometimes national and global ones.
The role of the legislator is a complex task of democratic governance. One must listen to one’s constituents, yes. But one also needs the benefit of information only lobbyists and government officials can offer. They after all represent groups within one’s district as well as in the state. That information is then filtered through a legislator’s own biases but also one’s party caucus. Governance requires teamwork – in committee and in caucuses. Finally, as you have more experience in legislating one develops an institutional memory of why and how things are done. Sitting in your district does not offer that important piece of the puzzle.
Yes, driving to Salem is a logistical obstacle for many. But in the day and age of cell phones, e-mail along, talk radio plus snail mail our legislators and their staff are just a click or mail box away from the hot breath of their constituents. Again, most people have only one issue they care about at a time – so if one is motivated enough you can get to Salem or collaborate with others to create advocacy groups which can have a daily presence in Salem. The idea of the lonely citizen out there not being heard is simply a myth. Politics requires collective action as people from as diverse points of view as OEA and AOI know!
Legislators need the day-to-day benefit of working with each other in committees – where the hard work of the legislature is done. Trying to replicate what is done in Salem during a normal 6-month session via teleconferencing or online would be a logistical nightmare and a waste of taxpayer money. Oregon already is muscle bound by the initiative and referendum process – the tool of special interest groups not the ubiquitous people. Going to some form of having one’s legislators stay home and vote by electronic mail would simply add another nail in the coffin of Oregon politics which is already too polarized and splintered.
Legislators are confronted with a wide variety of voices demanding a hearing when they are in Salem. What’s to guarantee they will hear such voices back home in districts which have increasingly been carved up by reapportionment to represent one-dimensional political views? Do you really want a House member from the “People’s Republic of Portland” to never hear the voices of voters from the burbs or rural Oregon or vise versa? And having worked in many campaigns candidates are already too prone to be victims of their own ideological or party echo chamber. With moving decision-making to the local level the echo chamber effect is magnified.
As a product of the ‘60s I once advocated for direct democracy along these lines. That was at a time when the nation was out of sorts over the racial divide and the war in Vietnam. It seemed time to break the lock of the power elites – at home and in DC. But I’m no longer a twenty something! Having been a citizen advocate for over 18 years I have a more chastened view of the political process. Edmund Burke expressed a more mature view of democratic politics from his experience as a British MP as well as the philosophical father of modern conservatism:
"Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates, but Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole...”
In the spirit of Halloween – it’s time to put a stake in the heart of this misguided idea
Reader Comments (5)
It is truly the issue that will never die.
On the other hand, technology is so advanced that constituents who are unable to visit the capital city can pick and choose their favorite way to get in touch. I think it will be a very long time before the old fashioned snail mail letter ever goes out of style.
Mark Hatfield once told us (at PU I believe) the energy with which he responded to his constituents was based on the number of letters he received on a topic. This was his offices gage of the importance of the problem to the voters back home. It seems now we, voters, have less of an excuse to not make our opinions known to our representatives with the many convenient methods of communication. Keep 'em where they are and lay down an appropriate salvo of electronic impulses. I really doubt I would be any more or less engaged if our state representative worked from home.