The Globe’s resident rightwing columnist, Jeff Jacoby, has provided another example of a very tired genre of political commentary in his latest work. Seizing on the present effort to recall California’s Democratic governor, Jacoby is flogging liberals for equating this direct democracy gift of early 20th century progressives with an “attack on democracy.” As usual, Jaboby’s argument starts off looking cheap, only to crumble completely with mild scrutiny.
Partisan media commentators like Jacoby cannot be shamed into producing intellectually honest analysis, and frankly, it’s hard to imagine how they’d be able to compete in the media marketplace if they did figure it out.
But I digress…
The existence of unintended consequences of well-intended reforms is an industry (and not just a cottage one) in political science. The framers of state constitutional provisions for ballot measures and recall elections were not able to anticipate the combined pathological effects on their creations of the Information Age and asymmetrical partisan polarization.
In California, only 12% of the electorate, as measured by turnout in the previous statewide election, can force a recall of statewide elected officials. One hundred years ago, that percentage could easily be understood as sufficient to register justified concern without giving election losers a viable weapon of partisan obstruction. Today, however, with professionalized signature gathering and a Republican Party able to convince a huge percentage of its base that the moon is made of cheese, it is clearly a potential weapon against the proper functioning of democratic government.