The three of them have a lot in common. All three are fairly liberal Democrats who live in an older Detroit suburb. Regardless of what you think of their politics, all are responsible and conscientious servants of the people, who have never been touched by scandal.
They also all agreed that our system of state government is broken, and headed for a day of reckoning, with all the stimulus money gone and next year’s huge state budget deficit looming ahead. Term limits have been a big part of this problem. Gubow, in fact, once said that term limits mean that in Michigan, the only people barred from serving in the legislature are convicted felons currently in prison -- and those who have earned the support of the voters.
They agreed on a number of other problems; our constitution is too easy to amend, and so questions that should be decided merely by passing a law are instead resolved by voters passing a constitutional amendment. Our constitution also forbids a graduated income tax, which means rich and poor pay the same tax rate.
Representative Lipton spoke of efforts to address the resulting unfairness with a complex system of tax credits. So complex, in fact, that when she explained this, I couldn’t understand it.
Eventually, one member of the audience asked a logical question. Eight days from now, the voters are going to be asked if they want to call a convention to fix the state constitution.
Since government is broken, were the panelists in favor of having a constitutional convention? Every one of them said no.
No, for one simple reason. They don’t trust the people. They didn’t use exactly those words, but that’s precisely what they meant. “Not in the present political climate,” Judge Gubow said. He feared that Tea Partiers might win a majority of the delegates and trample all over various rights and freedoms.
Representative Lipton said she had worked long and hard to make embryonic stem cell research possible, and feared that religious opponents might get elected delegates and write a new constitution that outlawed such scientific work.
Well, there is a safeguard, it was pointed out. No new constitution could take effect unless the voters ratified it.
If they wrote a turkey, we can vote it down. But it turns out none of the panelists trusted the people to do the right thing there, either.
Liberals are not, however, alone in this. Conservatives don’t trust the people either. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce and other groups are spending heavily to try to get them to vote no.
Their fears could have some merit. But I can’t help but think, what kind of democracy can you have if, at the end of the day, you fundamentally don’t trust the people?
Because if that’s the case, well, maybe we should have just stayed colonies of Great Britain after all.
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