The Purest Form of Democracy
BY DANIEL W. DRAKE PUBLISHER

A couple of weeks ago, at the ballot, about 20 percent of Nantucket's voters overwhelmingly defeated three overrides passed by a huge majority of the seven percent of the voters who attended Town Meeting. At the time, it seemed that our dog was being wagged by the tail - or perhaps it was two tails. Now, it seems we were lucky, not because the overrides were defeated, but because we got to vote on them at all, either at town meeting or at the polls.

The most recent Martha's Vineyard Times to arrive at the office re ported that the Town of Aquinnah was trying, for the third time to obtain a quorum of voters to reconvene its 2008 annual town meeting. Perhaps, not surprisingly, one of the articles on the warrant for the newest iteration is a charter change so a quorum is five percent rather than 10 percent of registered voters - this, in a town with a reported total of 396 registered voters.

The first session of town meeting was successfully convened back in May with 17% of the voters present. (Imagine if 17 % of Nantucket's voters, or about 1,400 people, showed up at the high school auditorium for a town meeting?) What may have gotten voters out for the original meeting was the special town meeting, held just in advance of the annual meeting to vote on a new ordinance to ban carrying open containers of alcoholic beverages in public places. Supported by the police chief to assist in enforcement efforts, voters obviously felt strongly about one of life's basic freedoms. According to the Martha's Vineyard Times, when the issue came to a vote, "…voters spoke by saying nothing."

The annual town meeting was then convened. However, it was "adjourned," according to the newspaper, before its business was completed, and the moderator asked everyone to return two days later. It was then that the debacle started. Of the required quorum of 39, only 34 were present. (Does our eminent moderator know something she could impart to her Aquinnah counterpart to assist him in avoiding such a problem?)

A second attempt, a week later, was equally unsuccessfully. The third attempt was to have been this past week. (As of Sunday morning, there were no press reports available as whether or not it was successful.) In the meantime, town officials were left scrambling. Apparently the town's fiscal year 2008 budget did pass the first ni ght, so th ere was no danger of having to close down on July 1. However, the principal fear appeared to be losing a state grant for the town's library, for which there was a cut-off date requiring town action. Other matters needed attention, as well.

One might logically ask the question: how could one not get 40 people to come together to complete the town's business? Even a town the size of Aquinnah has more than 40 people who work for the town or are members of town boards. Wouldn't these people be civic-minded enough to see the process through to its completion? Apparently not!

The real question is whether 40 - or 20, if the proposed charter goes through - unelected people should be in the position of deciding issues which impact everyone who lives in Aquinnah. In Nantucket, which already has the five percent quorum rule, should something like 410 people be in that position? This is democracy?

It is certainly true that those who attend town meeting do so voluntarily and those who stay away also exercise their freedom of choice. Why isn't that enough? For many reasons, but in part because they are being selective in the way they choose to exercise their franchise to vote.

Those who go to town meeting, at the very least, listen to the debate. Those who vote on the same matters at the polls may be totally ignorant of the issues because they have not heard the debate, but yet they choose - as is their right - to vote.

The system of a town meeting vote's requiring a two-thirds majority, followed by a ballot vote requiring a majority, was imposed on us byourselves almost 20 years ago by a vote of the people of the Commonwealth when Proposition 2 ½ was adopted. That vote, a state-wide referendum, probably is the purest form of democracy.

Some people love the theater of town meeting but not because it is representative. It isn't. We watch people leave after the matters they think are important are decided. Others are willing to stay to the bitter end because they believe it is their duty, but they are participating in votes as ministers without portfolio. Some find the town meeting process useful because, whether through their persuasiveness or the general inclinations - whatever they may be - of the people who tend to stay to the end, they can generally get their way without being accountable to anyone.

That is not to say that the representative form of democracy is always better. The recent experience with the revision of the European Union's constitution is illustrative. The legislatures of every country in the Union, save one, approved the changes. In Ireland, however, where it is put to a vote of the people, the ratification failed, despite the efforts of most public officials to ge t it pa ssed.

By the same token, the ban on carrying open beverage containers in public in Aquinnah might well have passed if considered by a representative town meeting or town council, just because elected bodies are more likely to enact such restrictive measures.

And the New York legislature, virtually every year, fails to enact a budget for the state in a timely fashion.

But the point is that these elected bodies do act, generally in a timely fashion and generally in a representative manner.

Town meeting is once a year. The process is agonizingly slow and inefficient, at be st. Sp ecial to wn meetings and special elections are time consuming, expensive and cumbersome. And when the process is finished, it is a b i t li ke a t i re go ing fl at. All t he i nte rest, enthusiasm and energy have vanished. Regrouping, if required, is difficult.

Nantucket's Town Government Study Committee was unsuccessful in 2007 in addressing this and other problems of town government. It is time to take the matter to a higher level. Heaven only knows what has happened in other towns.

The Commonwealth, under the auspices of the governor and the legislature, needs to examine the workings of municipal government and try to come up with a system which is more representative and more efficient wh ile st ill re taining th e ab ility of th e vo ters to have the final sa y wh ere th at is co nstitutionally re quired or unwarranted.

Whatever proposal may come out of such an effort will certainly be put to the voters. One can only hope they will show up.

The "Lighthouse Keeper" reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily represent the editorial position of The Nantucket Independent. Please send any ideas or comments to drake@ nantucketindependent.com. I