the right to vote on an issue, rather than on a candidate? Usually, it's
when there is a non-response on that issue from our elected officials.
Jim and Carol are afraid of mob democracy, that speeds right past the
sacrosanct "representative" model of governance where voters cast one
quadrennial ballot and then have to sit quietly for four years for a chance
to change who's in office so the people can affect an issue. They are
afraid of the numbers (voters will always outnumber business executives).
But what we have here is justified impatience on the part of those of us
who live in Minneapolis and see that there is a way to pay hourly-wage
workers better. The Council has refused to act, so the voters want their
shot at it.
When thousands of citizens sign petitions to have the right to a direct
vote on something, it is a sign of governmental dysfunction. Right here in
River City, where inequality reigns.
We can get buried in debates over court precedents and legalese about
charter provisions and so forth. But what's at the base of this is a Mayor
who refuses to consider requiring businesses to do anything they don't want
to do (they're always threatening to take their ball and bat and go
elsewhere), and a City Council that really doesn't have any idea of how to
defend its anti-worker inaction except to take refuge in legalese and OMGs
about delegating their authority to The People in initiative or
referendum.. They don't dare talk about actual working conditions. At
least, I haven't seen anything of the sort from the eleven CMs who voted
not to consider a higher minimum wage ordinance. We don't see them at the
state level, lobbying for state-wide better wages.
This judge seems to have seen right through the situation, realizing that
our city officials had attempted to exclude citizens from having any
influence at all on an issue. We have personalized our political system
totally out of the realm of ideological debate, and the citizens who
petitioned on the $15 minimum wage issue are trying to pull us back to a
non-personal discussion on what our society should be.
Connie Sullivan
Como, in Southeast Minneapolis