Power to the People: The Democracy Foundation's Plan to Create a Fourth Branch of Government

[EV_Ares]

Washington Dispatch: A nonprofit founded by presidential candidate Mike Gravel has been floating an ambitious proposal that would remake the framework of American democracy, allowing citizens to make laws through popular votes. Quixotic? Yes. Impractical? Maybe not.

By Jonathan Stein

For years now The Democracy Foundation, a Virginia-based nonprofit founded by former Alaska senator and current presidential hopeful Mike Gravel, has been pushing a plan that's both quixotic and rather sensible. Through its National Initiative for Democracy, the nonprofit aims to amend the Constitution in order to create a fourth branch of government, a "legislature of the people" empowered to make laws through nationwide popular voting.

"This is not a very radical thing at all," says the organization’s chairman, Tom Lombardi. "I see it as just a step forward. People have a right to step up to their rightful role as lawmakers alongside their representatives." In fact, citizens in 24 states are already allowed to pass initiatives and referendums by popular vote (in initiatives, citizens write laws and try to garner enough signatures to get those laws on statewide ballots; in referendums, legislatures draft the laws and put them on the ballots). The results, according to experts, have been sound. So why not take the idea national?

The plan has obvious advantages. National popular votes, for example, may be the only way to pass laws that are against lawmakers' interests, such as campaign finance reform, term limits, and caps on congressional pay. They would also reduce the disproportionate power of small geographical pockets. Under this system, senators from coal-producing states, to give one example, would have a much harder time holding up research on renewable sources of energy. A legislature of the people would also help to counter the influence of money in Washington—special interests and lobbyists can co-opt key members of Congress with campaign contributions and other perks, but would have a much harder time swaying the hearts and minds of millions of Americans.

((((entire article @ link below))))

http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/07/national_initiative.html

[northzax]

1. right, cause statewide ballot measures

have worked out so well for us.