Will grassroots democracy solve the government fiscal crisis?

• Author: Cheslik, Julie M.
• Position: Response to article by Patricia E. Salkin and Charles Gottlieb in this issue, p. 727

1. Citizens Are Presently Involved in Fiscal Decision-Making in Chaotic and Ill-Timed Ways II. Challenging Direct Democracy as a Viable Alternative for Municipal Fiscal Decision-Making: Can There Be Too Much Democracy? A. The Most Direct Democracy Is the Worst for Solving Fiscal Crises: Initiative and Referendum B. More Deliberative Methods of Grassroots Democracy Are Better Tools to Solve Municipal Fiscal Crises C. Randomly Selected Participants Improve Deliberative Democracy This Essay is a brief commentary on Patricia E. Salkin and Charles Gottlieb's Article, Engaging Deliberative Democracy at the Grassroots: Prioritizing the Effects of the Fiscal Crisis in New York at the Local Government Level. (1) I focus here, as Salkin does, (2) not on the causes of the present fiscal crises faced by a growing number of states and local governments, but on whether a solution to those financial crises might be found at the grassroots level by engaging citizens in a participatory democratic process.

   I will make three arguments, detailed in the sections that follow, in response to Professor Salkin's intriguing premise that engaging citizens in a grassroots, deliberative, democratic process can lead us out of our fiscal crisis. Generally, there is much to like about deliberative grassroots democracy as a solution to any problem, fiscal or other. In fact, it is the American way. But I am not equally enthusiastic about every method of grassroots democracy promulgated as a solution to a fiscal crisis. In fact, there is much evidence that some methods of grassroots democracy are actually harmful to sound government decision-making, particularly fiscal decision-making.

   First, voter education is necessary for a successful experience in deliberative democracy. Salkin's Article shows us that involved citizens can and do have transformative personal experiences as a result of participating in a deliberative, grassroots, democratic process in which they are asked to provide specific solutions or make difficult decisions to resolve problems facing government. In some cases, citizens personally transform from a "read my lips: no new taxes" (3) mindset to embrace a more Holmesian (4) notion that some things are simply worth paying for. (5) This suggests that voter education is an important part of deliberative democracy.

   Second, Salkin is quite correct to note that improvements to the present methods of citizen participation in fiscal matters of local government are warranted. (6) The present methods of citizen participation in addressing the major issues facing local government are inadequate in several respects, not the least of which is that they are often ill-timed and lacking in dialogue.

   Third, at risk of sounding undemocratic, I challenge the notion that more democratic process and participation at the grassroots level leads to better decisions or even better decision-making processes than representative democracy. There is plenty of evidence that more democracy is not necessarily better and that more grassroots participation does not necessarily lead to better or even different outcomes. In fact, one might even suggest that the most direct forms of democracy in use in the United States today--the initiative and the referendum--are complicit in causing or at least contributing to the fiscal crises. (7) We have long relied on the public hearing and the ballot box as the predominant or only methods of public participation in the political process. Both methods have proven frustrating and of limited value, particularly in fiscal matters where they occur too late in the process to help local governments which are then blindsided by the decisions of a public whose desires they have misread.

1. CITIZENS ARE PRESENTLY INVOLVED IN FISCAL DECISIONMAKING IN CHAOTIC AND ILL-TIMED WAYS

   Local governments should improve public participation in fiscal deliberative democracy if for no other reason than to cease being surprised and fiscally devastated by the electorate's decision-making at the ballot box. While it is sometimes the case that ballot box measures are the cause of the government's fiscal distress, it is the element of having to react to these measures, often in a defensive posture, that places state and local governments in difficult positions. State and local governments lurch from election to election wherein the voters deliver surprising and often inconsistent fiscal decisions. Several of Salkin's suggestions, particularly the deliberative polling process, can be effective in assisting local governments to better understand the electorate and to be proactive in fiscal decision-making to stave off the ballot box measures that contribute to the fiscal crises of local governments. (8)

   A 2011 ballot measure in Missouri provides a recent example of a local government on the defensive and at risk of ballot box budgeting that threatens dramatic fiscal problems for the local government. In April 2011, residents of both Kansas City, Missouri and St. Louis, Missouri, the two largest metropolitan areas of the state, voted overwhelmingly to retain a one percent earnings tax, (9) passing on a significant tax cut opportunity and allowing the local governments to retain a significant source of revenue. The tax provides 40% of Kansas City, Missouri's budget and one-third of St. Louis' budget. (10) The decision to retain the tax passed by a three-to-one margin in Kansas City and, in St. Louis, 88% of voters opted to retain the tax. (11)

   The important point to consider in this tale is not that the local governments dodged a bullet in retaining an important source of revenue, but to explore the reason the Kansas City and St. Louis voters were considering retention of the local earnings tax in the first place. In the prior election of November 2010, a statewide ballot initiative, Proposition A, was adopted, which prohibits any new local earnings taxes and requires existing earnings taxes to come up for a vote every five years. (12) Thus, between the two elections, the local governments and their supporters were essentially doing damage control: challenging the legality of Proposition A, speaking out in favor of the retention of the earnings tax, and raising money to educate residents as to the dire fiscal consequences that would result from the loss of the earnings tax as a source of revenue. (13)

   There are other reasons for local governments to engage in deliberative democracy with citizens. It is extremely difficult to predict voter outcomes in the current anti-tax, anti-government political climate. More dialogue with citizens creates improved opportunities for education as to local government needs. That education is presently provided as part of the political process, which is heavily influenced by special interest groups and produces erratic, if not illogical, results.

   In the November 2011 elections in the Kansas City metropolitan area...