IT’S TIME FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TO EMBRACE DIRECT DEMOCRACY

California has a solution for America’s putrid populism and political paralysis: adopting direct democracy at the national level. Allowing Americans to vote, by referendum, on the biggest issues wouldn’t be legally challenging or risky. All Congress would have to do is follow six practical steps suggested by a Californian named John Matsusaka.

As co-president of the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy, I’ve gotten to know Matsusaka, a USC professor, for his leadership of the Initiative & Referendum Institute., which tracks how American states and cities use direct democracy. Now, in a book titled “Let the People Rule,” Matsusaka offers something that academics rarely provide: a practical plan. He shows how the U.S. could improve its republic by introducing direct democracy, beginning with non-binding referenda on major issues, legislative proposals and treaties. His approach could be adopted without amending the U.S. Constitution.

Matsusaka also provides a coherent narrative for why national direct democracy is our natural next step. Our national government, in growing more complex and technical in response to modern duties, has also become more distant from Americans, who respond with anger that can be destructive to our civic life. In this context, voting through direct democracy could be a vital bridge between rulers and the ruled, allowing people to channel their anger, constructively.

Matsusaka carefully demolishes arguments against direct democracy, especially the idea that it runs contrary to U.S. tradition. The referendum is as old as the country. Adding national direct democracy would fit our long history of democratization: expanding suffrage, directly elected senators, and adopting direct democracy at local and state levels.

Matsusaka’s six-step plan calls for a cautious introduction of direct democracy, starting with tools that can be approved by statute, and don’t require a constitutional amendment. First, Congress should give itself power to hold advisory, or nonbinding, referenda, perhaps on popular but controversial bills, like the Dream Act for unauthorized immigrants. Second, Congress could grant American citizens the power, by gathering signatures on petitions in different states, to call nonbinding referenda. (This likely would put animal rights, minimum wages, and marijuana on national ballots). Third, Congress could require a national advisory referendum before making certain major decisions, like approving international treaties (like the Paris Agreement on climate change) or going to war.

If such advisory referenda proved popular, then Americans might change the constitution to adopt the powerful direct democracy tools familiar to Californians, like binding ballot initiatives to change laws.

More broadly, Matsusaka’s book begs the question of how much longer we can continue our escalating political warfare and still call the United States a democratic republic. The best way to keep America a democracy is to practice democracy more.

writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.