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Local Politics
A couple of items form the Great White North.
One of Governor Jesse "the Boor" Ventura’s pet schemes is to move Minnesota to a "unicameral" legislative system. Only one other state (Nebraska) currently has a single house of government, but to Jesse it simply screams "reform!"
This is a terrible idea, for reasons I get into below, but Jesse’s approach contains a hidden nugget of truth. The U.S. Supreme Court, in the 1964 case Reynolds v. Sims, held that state legislatures based on any principle other than equal representation of human carcasses was inherently in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and hence unconstitutional. While this is a horribly reasoned decision and classic example of the Warren Court imposing left wing political principles from the bench, no one seems terribly interested in revisiting the issue. Thus we are left with the practical reality that the two houses in a state legislature by definition must be almost mirror images of each other. One of the founding fathers’ more important insights, that one of the keys to republican democracy was a balancing of competing interests, is not allowed to see the light of day in the states. Thanks, Earl.
Because of this one is tempted to ask why it is necessary to maintain two houses which simply duplicate each other. Jesse sees this and sees inefficiency. His solution is to delete the duplication and get rid of one of the houses. In theory this would save money, eliminate the conference committees in which so much mischief is done, and allow legislation to whiz right through to the Governor’s desk.
So, what could be bad about this? I think the problem lies in the concept of "efficient government". Government ought not to be efficient. The single biggest problem in America today is that governments do entirely too much legislating. The legislator’s natural urge to "solve" every problem by passing laws is a direct threat to the very notion of deliberative democracy. In Minnesota today we have a wonderfully inefficient system: one party (DFL) runs the Senate; another party (Republican) runs the House; and yet a third (Reform) runs the executive. There are only two ways a law can get passed in this environment – if it throws money at everyone’s pet concerns, or if it clearly benefits the citizens of Minnesota. Not perfect, but a whole sight better than a system in which one party simply has to gain control of the one house and proceed to jam law after law after law into the books, running roughshod until the next electoral cycle.
I am not one to disparage "simplistic" ideas – the best solutions, although rarely easy, are usually simple. But this idea attempts to solve a problem that isn’t a problem at all. Forcing proposed legislation to pass through multi-layered winnowing is one of the people’s best defenses against tyranny. By putting unicameralism at the top of his "reform" agenda, Governor Ventura confirms that his policy prescriptions are akin to those of a High School Junior – sexy ideas with no heavy thinking required.
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Liberalism has never been famous for its rigorous logic – it relies too heavily on emotion to permit logic to play a significant role. But sometimes you see gems of self-contradiction that amaze even cynical liberal-watchers like myself.
The Twin Cities’ highway system is over capacity and getting worse. Since building and expanding freeways would run counter to the trendy and radical "new urbanist" principals that more or less govern the Cities, no plans are in the works to build. Instead we have "metered ramps", in which cars are forced to wait at stop lights which control their entry onto the freeways and are timed according to freeway traffic levels. This is incredibly annoying (20 or 30 minute waits during rush hour are not unusual) but at least it is understandable.
What is not understandable is the second liberal "solution" layered on top of it. As part of their ceaseless efforts to make people do what they don’t want to do, the regional powers that be have begun installing "HOV" (High Occupancy Vehicle) ramps next to the regular ramps. These ramps, to be used by cars with more than 1 person, buses and motorcycles (!) bypass the metered lights, allowing their occupants to zoom onto the freeway at will.
This has resulted, as you may imagine, in a delicious Catch-22. To the degree that the HOV policy succeeds, it will directly result in the failure of the metered ramp policy, as cars of the right sort are allowed to enter the system willy-nilly. Indeed, even the incredibly patient and orderly Minnesotans are beginning to understand that nothing but their clean-cut nordic outlooks prevent them from popping into the HOV lane any time they want and avoiding the meters altogether. Short of stationing a cop at every entrance ramp there is nothing the authorities can do about it.
This silliness is clearly a result of trying to appease two liberal constituencies: those who want to make commuting as miserable as possible in order to restrain growth, and those who think that forcing people to car-pool will "save the earth". By definition they are unable to do both, but that won’t stop them! The Liberalism of our age is an exercise in moral validation, not a practical creed that seeks to actually get things done.