Time For Representative

Democracy In Newtown

To the Editor:

I am not sure what is more regrettable: the failure of the second budget referendum to pass muster, or the woefully low turnout of the electorate. What’s clear is that the two are painfully linked. It is time for the people of Newtown to hold a referendum on representative democracy.

Reasonable people can argue over the fine points of any budget plan. What’s not debatable is the moral imperative of the citizenry to allocate certain resources necessary to provide for the needs of its people. In the case of Newtown, proper education of the town’s young is the biggest such expense. And one does not have to be a parent to recognize its strategic and moral importance.

The problem is that the referendum process does not provide for a debate over the details with which the town must embrace these moral duties. It is, in effect, a blunt instrument — whose outcome is always binary. I don’t believe this was its intention. Those voters that disagree with the quantum of spending on, say, education versus a new building to house the town’s bureaucracy, can only vote Yes or No in a budget referendum.

The truth is that these are details that would be better left to our elected officials to debate and consider. If the electorate does not agree with how they execute their duties, they have the option of removing them from office at the end of their terms. Exacting each and every budget to a town vote gums up this essential component of the American democratic process.

Supporters of referenda call it the most democratic form of governance. But the painfully low voter turnout suggests the opposite. With just 30 percent of voters casting their ballots — as in the latest vote — it is easy for a single group to hijack its outcome. The reality is that the most productive members of our society are more likely to find themselves in a scheduling conflict with the demands of the latest referendum.

To put it bluntly, it is a hassle for working men and women — or those attending to children — to vote on each and every budget. I, for one, voted in both of the past two failed referendum. That I travel regularly around country and abroad for my work — and primarily operate out of midtown Manhattan — makes this no small feat.

So here is my proposal: let’s have a referendum on abolishing annual budget referendums. Essentially, we would ask the voters of the town to delegate to our elected officials — as our Founding Fathers did with the creation of Congress — the duties of properly providing for our citizens.

Such a referendum would almost certainly attract the busy fathers and mothers — with the most at stake in the budget’s provision of a top notch education to Newtown’s children — to cast their ballots. It would also allow for the town to truly embrace representative democracy.

Sincerely,

Rob Cox

136 Castle Hill Road, Newtown                                                                     May 9, 2007