On election night last week, I watched Measure 120 crash like a car on a crumbling state highway. The ballot question, which would have raised Oregonians’ gas tax and vehicle fees to backfill transportation funding, was rejected by 83% of voters1 — to no one’s great surprise. It was just the final failure in a long line of flops and fumbles by the state’s Democratic legislature.2 Perhaps more accurately, Measure 120 ran out of gas, rolled off the edge of Route 101, and sank quietly into the waves.
A week or two before the measure’s demise, I finished reading The State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin. Although the focus of the pamphlet is… the state and revolution (duh), it includes a discussion of democracy for the rich and workers’ democracy3. I couldn’t help but think of Lenin’s writing as the results of Tuesday’s elections rolled in. Measure 120 was part of Oregon’s system of referendums, initiatives, vetoes, etc., which are often collectively referred to as “direct democracy”. At first blush, this system is thrilling. It should allow the majority of Oregonians, the state’s working class, to reshape our political system according to our needs. And yet, after over a century of this “direct democracy”, enormous inequality persists throughout the state. I began to wonder: who does Oregon’s “direct democracy” serve? The rich or the working class?
To answer that question, I’ll have to give you a quick rundown of the distinction Lenin (among many other Marxists) makes here. What we have in our society is democracy for the rich, a system controlled by the wealthiest people which gives the working class some semblance of democratic freedoms. It looks like democracy, but the devil is in the details. When we drill down, we start to see layer upon layer of caveats and restrictions. You can probably think of a dozen of these yourself: money in politics, the two-party system, infrequent elections, working too much to be involved, etc. Eventually, “these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.”4 (“The poor” here includes almost anyone reading this.) What we end up with is democracy for a tiny minority. The working-class majority gets a choice, and maybe even a voice, but never power.
Workers’ democracy, on the other hand, is the real deal, and it’s what Marxists strive for. One of the most prominent examples of this system, and the one that Lenin discusses, is the Paris Commune5. The Commune had a governing council, of which all members were elected by universal suffrage, could be recalled at any time, and were paid a working-class salary (…plus the army was abolished and replaced by arming workers). This council became “a working, not a parliamentary body,”6 meaning that it actually got things done. Although other instances of workers’ democracy can differ in the details, you see the broad strokes here: an efficient, responsive democracy without the restrictions discussed above. In a classic Marxist magic trick, quantity is transformed into quality; more democracy makes it a different type of democracy (for workers rather than the rich).
Now that we’ve talked about democracy for the rich and workers’ democracy, we can think about which category Oregon’s direct democracy7 belongs to. Specifically, we’ll take a look at the full process for ballot initiatives, a tool enshrined in the state constitution which allows citizens to propose policies and place them on the ballot.8 When it comes to democracy, the devil is in the details, so I’ll be paying particular attention to elements which could disenfranchise working-class people.
An initiative is born when someone, somewhere, writes a new law or a change to an existing one. Although this could in theory happen through a public process, there are no institutions to make this possible, and I’m not familiar with serious attempts at doing this. With even less transparency than in an elected body, the proposed policy change which will travel through the rest of the process is set in stone. Additionally, it may only address a single subject, which limits its scope. Once the text of the ballot question has been submitted to the government for official approval, you can start collecting signatures.
To place an initiative on the ballot, you must gather a number of signatures calculated as a percentage of total votes in the last governor’s election. For a constitutional amendment, which allows for the most sweeping changes, that number is over 160,000 (though it is lower for other types of ballot questions).9 Perhaps when this system was created in 1902, the original signature requirement of around 7,000 was manageable.10 Today, though, few initiatives meet the quota without the support of major businesses or nonprofits. It is difficult for grassroots efforts to bring an initiative to the ballot.
Once it makes it to the ballot, the great American free-for-all of money in politics takes hold. If an initiative challenges the interests of the rich in any way, it is met with a fire hose of opposition spending. A good example here is Measure 97, which would have significantly raised the corporate gross sales tax to fund education, healthcare, and senior services. Even with the support of much of the state’s Democratic establishment, across-the-board endorsements by unions and progressive organizations, and $18 million of spending in support, the measure was defeated with $27 million of opposition spending from businesses and a 60% No vote at the ballot box.11
Finally, the typical voter is in a very different position than an elected representative. Filling out our ballots is another chore squeezed into our busy schedules. Outside of when they vote, most people do not have the time, energy, or interest to actively engage in and stay informed on local politics (and many of the media outlets they rely on are protecting the interests of the rich). Therefore, although voters may be more difficult to bribe than elected officials, they can still be swayed by the flood of election season advertising, an arena which favors those with money.
After seeing these issues stack up, it’s clear that Oregon’s direct democracy is another part of democracy for the rich. It’s far more democratic than most of our local elections, but it’s still fatally compromised as a tool for the working class to win political power. Our job as socialists, though, isn’t to give up in despair; it’s to push direct democracy to its limits, winning as many improvements for the working class and building as much power for our movement as we can. As important as the results we win are the campaigns we mount. Rather than just swaying voters, we need to gain politically engaged members of the DSA and aligned organizations. Knocking on doors is a good place to start. ◧
- Measure 120 on Ballotpedia. ↩︎
- “How hikes to Oregon gas taxes and fees ended up on the ballot” from OPB. ↩︎
- Lenin uses the terms “bourgeois democracy” and “proletarian democracy”. Out of a hatred for the French, I have avoided using these terms. ↩︎
- The State and Revolution, Chapter 5, Section 2. ↩︎
- “The Paris Commune was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. … The Commune governed Paris for two months, promoting policies that tended toward a progressive, anti-religious system, which was an eclectic mix of many 19th-century schools of thought. These policies included the separation of church and state, self-policing, the remission of rent, the abolition of child labor, and the right of employees to take over an enterprise deserted by its owner. The Commune closed all Catholic churches and schools in Paris. Feminist, communist, old-style social democracy (a mix of reformism and revolutionism), and anarchist/Proudhonist currents, among other socialist types, played important roles in the Commune.” From “Paris Commune” on Wikipedia. ↩︎
- The State and Revolution, Chapter 3, Section 3 ↩︎
- I got tired of putting scare quotes on direct democracy, but please keep adding them mentally. ↩︎
- For information on the different types of ballot questions in Oregon, see Ballotpedia. ↩︎
- “Signature requirements for ballot measures in Oregon” on Ballotpedia. ↩︎
- Based on my own calculation. According to “1902 Oregon gubernatorial election” on Wikipedia, there were 90,662 votes cast in the 1902 gubernatorial election. 90,662 x 8% = 7252.96 ↩︎
- “Oregon Measure 97, Business Tax Increase Initiative (2016)” on Ballotpedia. ↩︎