Democracy should not be on the ballot because America was never meant to be a pure democratic plebiscitary. The rhetoric regarding “American democracy,” however, picked up in the early twentieth-century during the
political movement of Progressivism and especially after
the first and second World Wars. The leaders of the Progressive movement—intellectuals like John Dewey, Frank Goodnow, James Landis, and Herbert Croly, as well political figures like Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, and FDR—sought to undermine and displace the American constitutional order. Instead of a Senate chosen by state legislatures, the people would directly choose all of their congressmen. Instead of separation of powers and checks and balances (including non-delegation power, no combination of departmental functions, and administration under the executive), an administrative state created by legislative delegation and equipped with a combination of legislative, judicial, and executive powers would replicate parliamentary efficiency in order to make the government more responsive to the needs and wants of the people (as directed by experts).
The Progressives pushed for three major “democratic” reforms: the initiative and referendum, the recall of judicial decisions, and the direct primary among the states. Ballot initiatives were petition processes that, if garnering enough signatures, forced a direct vote on the matter by the legislature or among the people in general. Referendums were placed on the ballot as measures preliminarily passed by legislatures, but that could be approved or rejected by voters. The recall, either of duly elected representatives or of judicial decisions, empowered the people to deliberate over whether to remove officials of whom the people disapproved (before their term was over), or to annul judicial decisions that struck down popular legislative measures. The direct primary of political officeholders was meant to undermine the role of political parties and party bosses in choosing who would run and be supported for office. In the eyes of many progressives, political parties themselves were illegitimate institutions diluting the voice and action of the people; the direct primary (and the direct election of Senators) was meant to bypass parties and bring the voters into direct contact with the national government.
Ben Crenshaw
