The people's veto: Has its time come?

Last week I proposed that politicians would benefit greatly from paying attention to what the voters are saying — about issues and about their elected leaders.

A timely example of that occurred Tuesday when Massachusetts voters warned Washington politicians that they can’t be taken for granted any longer. It was clear in the final weeks of the Senate campaign there that Democrat Martha Coakley wasn’t listening to the voters in Massachusetts; she was telling them what she thought they needed to hear. Scott Brown, on the other hand, adopted a humble approach to the campaign and prevailed. His voice resonates with the voices in the street.

Of course, there is always the risk that Brown will fall in love with the sound of his own voice, as other politicians who have gone before him, or forget that his power is the power of the people. We will have to wait and see.

But there are ways for politicians to remain abreast of the people, to hear their cries. I noted last week that the Internet is a natural vehicle for keeping one’s ear to the ground, and for finding out what the people of this great country really care about.

Indeed, the Internet represents a great technology which till now has barely been tapped for its social potential. It seems inevitable that one day the Internet will offer more than a sounding board for individual senators and representatives to gauge their support. It may even provide the opportunity for a true plebiscite of a kind that hasn’t been available since Greeks and Romans voted by turning up in the public square.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not going to propose direct democracy, where the will of the majority dictates all public policy to the detriment of the minority. Heaven forbid. That would create too much opportunity for abuse.

However, as Thomas Jefferson declared, “The will of the people... is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.”

That being the case, we must ask whether or not our current system of government adequately safeguards the “will of the people,” or whether we are witnessing what Jefferson called “the tyranny of the Legislature.”

Sen. Harry Reid said not long ago that Congress was “declaring” health care to be a right, but Reid would do well to study the foundational document of American liberty. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Rights are not granted or created by the legislature or the king, but by God. If the right to health care can be created by the legislature, then it can also be taken away. And if the legislature can take away that right, it is but a short distance from claiming the authority to take away your other rights — of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Moreover, what is truly frightening is that the legislature insists on imposing this new “right” upon the people by the thinnest possible margin in the House and Senate and without the consent of the governed. Poll after poll has shown that Americans oppose the Democratic plans for health-care reform for a variety of reasons, not least of which is its unconstitutional hubris.

Yet President Obama, Sen. Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been deaf to the cries of the people. Will that change now that Scott Brown has been elected to the Senate?

So far, we have gotten mixed signals. Pelosi said that health care will be passed “one way or another.” President Obama said he understands the anger of the voters, but he also said he intends to move ahead with health-care reform and said that he would ask Congress to “try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on.”

But is he really going to listen to “the people” or just to “the people in Congress”? If it is the latter, we could well be doomed to get a massive health-care reform bill. Let’s face it: If we have learned anything in the last few months, it is that votes can be bought pretty easily when you are spending the taxpayers’ money rather than your own.

And what if there had not been a special election in Massachusetts this month? Then how would Congress and President Obama have gotten the message from the people? They don’t seem to pay attention to letters from their constituents or phone calls (“We’re sorry, but the voice mailbox of the person you are calling is full.”) They didn’t pay attention to more than a million people who marched on Washington in September (“That looks more like 30,000 people to me!”). And they didn’t pay attention to the fact that NOT EVEN ONE Republican would support the bill in the Senate (so much for Obama’s promise to end the partisan rancor in Washington).

Indeed, up till now, Obama, Reid and Pelosi have insisted on squeezing the budget-draining, freedom-killing health-care bill through at any cost, failing to heed Jefferson’s warning that “Great innovations should not be forced on a slender majority.”

Perhaps then it is time for “we the people” to change our system of government to add one more check on the power of the Legislature to ensure that it properly reflects the will of the majority. If we have gone from the era of the horse and buggy to the space shuttle in the 230-plus years since this nation was founded, then perhaps it is not too much to expect similar fundamental improvements in governance.

The question the American public needs to have answered once and for all is: “Can you hear us now?” And that’s where the Internet may be able to play a valuable role in giving the people a meaningful voice in their own government.

I’m not exactly sure what such a new system would look like, but it would necessarily combine somehow the will of the people and the wisdom of trusted leaders. I am confident it would improve upon our current system which relies on the will of untrusted leaders and completely thwarts the wisdom of the people.

Here’s the starting point for a constitutional amendment, upon which some political genius can no doubt improve:

“The legal voters of the United States of America shall retain the right to veto any legislation proposed or passed by the Congress of the United States. In order to safeguard this right, each legal voter shall be issued a user name and password to allow electronic voting by citizens on any piece of legislation proposed or passed by Congress. Voting may be carried out from any secure access point to the Internet, and such access points must be made available to all citizens upon request in public facilities at the state, federal and county level. Whenever enough valid opposition votes are cast to constitute 60 percent of the legally registered voters in the nation as a whole, then the legislation shall be considered null and void for the rest of that legislative session, and shall be set aside, whether it has already been approved by Congress or not.”

Call it the people’s veto. It was never possible before now, but it may be needed now more than ever, if we are going to retain the republic.

Of course, there is a cheaper, simpler alternative, which is that Congress take off its blinders, pull the cotton out of its ears, and heed to the will of the majority before it is too late. If they were smart, they would do so, as Thomas Jefferson already noted:

“It is the multitude which possess force, and wisdom must yield to that.”

The question that remains to be answered is whether there is any wisdom in Congress.

n Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com