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making a difference

A week and change ago, I spent three hours in MassEquality's headquarters calling residents of Angelo Puppolo's district in Springfield to ask them to call up his office and leave him voicemail saying they support equal marriage and asking him to vote no in constitutional convention. Eighteen people told me that they would, and I left messages on dozens of answering machines. I'd like to thank those eighteen people: Puppolo changed his vote and joined 150 other legislators in voting down the anti-gay-marriage amendment today. And I'd also like to thank the random guy on the street who found me outside the Diesel and convinced me to go make phone calls, and the eight or ten other people making phone calls that night, and the dozens of volunteers on other nights, and all the Mass Equality donors who paid for the calls. I don't have any of your names, and that's just fine, but I appreciate you all anyway.

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note that Puppolo wasn't in the legislature in January and so the change is from what he said he would do, rather than what he did. Legislators who were around last time and changed their votes were Christine Canavan (D-Brockton), Paul Kujawski (D-Webster), Paul Loscocco (R-Holliston), Robert Nyman (D-Hanover), Richard Ross (R-Wrentham), James Valee (D-Franklin), Brian Wallace (D-South Boston), Gale Candaras (D-Wilbraham), and Michael Morrissey (D-Quincy).

I apologize if my discussion in your journal is getting a tad out of hand, but I would hope that you'd tell me if it was. :)

I started out with a sanctimonious political post, and this is as close to civil discussion as I have seen on this issue, so I'll take it

you go ! thanks so much for the work !

Yay!!!!!!!

To be honest, I want it to get to a referendum vote so that the issue can be put to rest, once and for all; until the "people" speak, both sides are free to say whatever they want about what kind of popular support they have. And if anyone is in doubt about what kind of voter turn-out there would be, I strongly believe this is an issue that would indeed "rock the vote."

How can you comment in a post about people calling up their reps and telling them how to vote and say that the people haven't spoken?

If you believe that the reps actually represent their districts accurately and that both sides mobilized people to call up people to remind them to call up their reps and tell them how to vote, then perhaps the people have spoken. I don't and the whole bru-ha-ha over the Electoral College ("Gore won the popular vote!") tells me that lots of other people don't think it accurately reflects "the people's wishes" either.

I'd like to see what the subset of people who will vote think rather than the subset of the people who take the trouble to remind a further subset of the people to call their reps think. I think

palmwiz did a very cool thing; it is participatory democracy in action. But it doesn't tell me what the Commonweal of Massachusetts thinks.

My Republican Senator thinks the people will shoot it down in flames. At that point, it's simply a question of "Do we bother wasting the people's time by having them shoot it down themselves or do we do our job as legislators and legislate?".

"Do we bother wasting the people's time by having them shoot it down themselves or do we do our job as legislators and legislate?"

That was my whole point; I think this particular issue is one that is worth "wasting people's time" with; I don't believe it is a legislator's job here. This is, if I understand it correctly, a proposed amendment to the State Constitution and that is a matter for the people as a whole. I understand the desire to only bother "the people as a whole" for amendments that are important, just as I understand the desire to make changing the State Constitution "rare"; I think this one qualifies on both counts.

I suspect those pushing for this will just try again next year.

I understand the desire to only bother "the people as a whole" for amendments that are important.

If that were the criterion, I would have voted "Yes". But more important are whether or not it has a chance of passing and whether or not it enhances our freedoms or protects or rights. This meets none of these criteria.

But more important are whether or not it has a chance of passing and whether or not it enhances our freedoms or protects o[u]r rights. This meets none of these criteria.

I don't think those are criteria that should be considered by the legislature; it's not up to them to "protect" me from things like this. If, to use an absurd example, 95% of the Commonweal felt same-sex marriage should be banned, it is not their reps' job to say, "No, sorry, we know better and won't give you a chance to vote on this one."; in fact, it is explicitly not their job. If that is what's going on, if the legislature doesn't trust the people to vote the "correct" way, I hope said legislature gets the boot the next election.

If you feel it has no chance of passing and, thus, would be a waste of people's time, I go back to my statement about it being important. To have the a referendum vote say, "We, the people of Massachusetts, overwhelmingly say that same-sex marriage should be legal here" is much more powerful than, "We got our legislature to block attempts to get this on the ballot."

And if we object to the very notion that it be on the ballot in the first place?

Then I would say that you fail to understand the notion of actual democracy; the idea that the people set the rules for governing themselves. I grant you that it is a tough notion to accept; many countries reject it in favour of, say, "God tells us the rules" or "This small group over here tells us the rules" or "This unchanging document tells us the rules" (to name a few other methods).

Right now, the Commonweal of Massachusetts has a document that sets the basic rules by which all (state) laws should be judged. If the two are in conflict, the document always wins. :-) Under the latest court interpretation of that document, same-sex marriage is legal for residents (the matter of that pesky 1917 (?) law forbidding non-residents from marrying here under certain circumstances isn't relevant) and so it is. But the document isn't "unchanging" and this is exactly how tough social questions should be decided; if it is controversial or important enough, it comes before the people who "speak" their will.

To say that the people shouldn't be consulted about something like this is rather arrogant in my opinion. If you really believe you know "better" than the (2/3?) majority of the citizens of Massachusetts and therefore there is no need to see how they think, I'd say that goes beyond arrogant.

Fortunately, we don't live in a Democracy, we live in a Republic. This means that the Tyranny of the Majority is thwarted by checks and balances, notably the representational system of electing legislators. The existence of a constitution at all is a check against democracy.

If you really believe you know "better" than the (2/3?) majority of the citizens

Which 2/3 are you referring to?

Fortunately, we don't live in a Democracy, we live in a Republic.

I seem to recall a Republic is a "representative democracy"; it is still a democracy but the people no longer vote directly; the "checks and balances" built into our system have little to do with elected legislators (witness the Republican Congress, House and President) as they have to do with the distribution of power between the branches of government. That is why it is necessary to change the State Constitution to change the status of same-sex marriage here; the Legislative branch cannot directly overrule the Judicial.

The so-called "Tyranny of the Majority" isn't prevented here; neither is the Tyranny of the Minority; the balance between those comes from the specific Constitution in place. Prohibition was clearly the Majority inflicting its belief on everyone; nothing prevented it.

Which 2/3 are you referring to?

I was under the impression that to amend the state Constitution required a 2/3 majority vote on a referendum but I could be wrong (hence the question mark). The idea is that changing the Constitution is important enough that it requires more than a majority, it requires an overwhelming one (for some definition of overwhelming).

No, that's a Federal Constitutional Amendment. Massachusetts requires Simple Majority.

http://www.mass.gov/legis/const.htm
Article XLVIII, Section 4.

Part IV, Section 5.

Funny that you'd cite the one Constitutional Amendment that was wholly and bodily repealed as evidence for how the Majority can still be Tyrannical.

That's the point; the Majority was pretty Tyrannical and inflicted Prohibition onto everyone until a later Majority got Tyrannical and repealed it. The majority is still being tyrannical as far as Presidential term limits; there were plenty of people who felt that Bill Clinton should have been able to run again just as there are plenty of people who feel George W. Bush should be able to run again; both are subject to the Tyranny of the Majority.

And thanks for the info on amending the State Constitution; I get confused because, let's face it, how often are either one changed?

I'm ambivalent about them myself, but I think there are legitimate non-tyrannical reasons for term limits.

I think there are also Unintended Consequences to them, as there are with most things; I haven't thought about term limits enough to decide my opinion.

I would also say that whether or not one thinks something is Tyrannical has a lot to do with whether or not one agrees with it; one person's "Tyranny of the Majority" is another's "The Way Things Ought To Be."

The question in my mind is not whether it would pass -- the polls say it would have failed resoundingly -- nor even whether it is worth spending taxpayer money on referenda that are unlikely to pass, but what we want our political discourse to look like, both locally and nationally. I don't want to give a bunch of out of state social conservatives a bully pulpit in a Presidential election year, especially not when it would waste a bunch of my time and the time of the citizens of this state to do so. And I think that is a legitimate concern: I cherish freedom of speech as a legal construct, but that does not obligate me to support financially and logistically the opinions of those with whom I disagree.

...what we want our political discourse to look like, both locally and nationally.

A very good reason but I would say that this is a good time and place for such a thing; to have them "do their worst" and still have it resoundingly defeated would say quite strongly that their arguments didn't cut it here. I'll grant you the timing might not be the best but said social conservatives are going to be out in force anyway (just because it is a Presidential election year) so all the rhetoric (on both sides) will be coming out regardless.

I'd rather set the venue and hand them a defeat than have them set the venue and have it pass somewhere else.

Thank you for helping to make it happen!

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