The People Have Spoken…But Is Anyone Listening?
A candidate by the name of Dick Tuck was running for the Senate in California in 1962, but lost in the primary. He is reported to have said, “The people have spoken…the bastards.”
The concept, of course, being that the voters had their say, and it wasn’t to his liking…so he moved on.
“Moving on” is not a concept we see, though, in special elections—like the one held earlier this week. How many times have we seen school bond votes or municipal bond votes be rejected by voters…and the first words out of the mouths of those who lost being to pledge to regroup and try again as soon as possible.
And, more often than not, the bond eventually passes because the proponents wear down the oppositions. The proponents typically are the institutions, schools or cities, and they have the infrastructure—and vested interest—in pushing the vote as often as it necessary.
Granted, sometimes the project is scaled back because the feedback from voters was that the original project was too rich for their blood. But again, it’s hard to mobilize opposition to institutions over and over, especially on the same topic.
We currently have laws in place limiting the number of times per year when special elections can be held…that’s why you saw so many this past Tuesday, because it was one of the few days designated as election days.
So how about a law saying that if a bond issue fails…that same issue or one substantially like it cannot come before the public again for two years. I could go along with a different time frame, so long as there was some decent interval before the institutions tried ramming it down voters’ throats again.
After all, if the people have spoken…those allied with institutions should listen.
