LA Streetcar and Pocket Borough Politics
http://citywatchla.com/lead-stories-hidden/4233-la-streetcar-and-pocket-borough-politics
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN - This past year saw an election cycle in which democratic voting rights were in question to a very troubling extent, despite claims by proponents of voter ID laws and limitations on early voting –however implausible–that they were concerned with the integrity of democracy. At least Californians could take some comfort in the fact that the state defied national trends and made it easier to register, not harder (or impossible) to vote.
So for me, as an Angeleno, it was both jarring and eye-opening to
hear the recent debate surrounding a mail-in election on new taxes to
pay for a streetcar loop in downtown Los Angeles. I say jarring and
eye-opening because some of the arguments combined a modern confusion
with a very, very old prejudice about democracy. It was a reminder that
we should never assume democratic principles are secure and beyond
doubt.
A little background is in order. By the close of voting a few weeks
ago, residents of a specially-created downtown district had approved
the new tax assessment. So if – and only if – additional federal funds
are won, the central city will get a streetcar loop reaching from First
Street to the Staples Center.
The questions about democracy arose in this case because some
landlords and commercial property owners didn’t just criticize the
streetcar plan or tax policy, but argued that the wrong people were
deciding the issue.
Carol Schatz, who actually sits on the board of the group that
promoted the streetcar, voiced their criticism. The president of the
Central City Association, Schatz put it this way in an appearance on Which Way, LA.?:
“The people who are voting are not paying the vast, vast majority
of the assessment that’s going to be voted on. Commercial property
owners are paying for that, and most of them don’t live in the downtown
area. So people who are residents, in apartments and so forth, are going
to be voting where they have no skin in the game. They’re not really
paying for it. Easy vote to make.”
Let’s put aside two very salient retorts here — that many residents
are property owners, and that even tenants will almost certainly end up
paying the tax indirectly in the form of higher rents.
Schatz’s property owners really had two arguments. One was that
there’s something untoward about citizens deciding to spend public funds
for a public good instead of somehow “paying for it” themselves. The
other was that property owners in a jurisdiction have some sort of
special claim to a political say there regardless of where they live.
First, let’s consider the modern confusion, which is one between
the values of democracy and the values of finance. The use of the
expression “no skin in the game” gives away what we’re dealing with.
“Skin in the game” is investor talk for having your money at risk. And
putting your money at risk is supposedly the prerequisite for shaping
and profiting from a deal. (Unless you’re a bank trading in
mortgage-backed securities, but that’s another story.)
“Skin in the game” is part of a mental universe of private
interest, personal profit and gamesmanship. In this world, “money talks”
is a point of pride, a principle, not a critique. But these are not the
values that should be at work when the public decides about something
like the downtown streetcar. Here, the relevant values should be
equality, public interest and concern for the common good. Citizens get
to decide, on equal terms, about public policy because in a democracy
they are the final arbiters of what’s good for the city, the state or
the nation, not because they came to the table with the most chips – or
the most “skin.”
Next, let’s consider the ancient prejudice: that there are some
people who have a special claim to political power simply because they
own property. In the US, the searing struggles to extend the suffrage to
non-whites and to women tend to cause us to forget the difficult fights
to abolish property qualifications for voting. It’s not just that at
one time you had to have a certain amount of money to vote.
In England, before the Reform Bills, there were actually districts,
“pocket boroughs,” in which the owners of particular properties
effectively chose representatives to Parliament. And the British
conservatives of that era thought this was entirely right and fitting.
The idea that nonresident commercial property owners deserve some
particular say in downtown tax and transportation policy is certainly a
grandchild (probably patrilineal) of the justification for pocket
boroughs and the exclusive rule of property.
Now, I’m not saying that certain downtown property owners want to
take away some people’s voting rights. Or that they want to bring back
pocket boroughs. I doubt they do. But I am saying that these kinds of
muddled, pre-democratic sentiments have to be taken seriously and
rebutted in a year when a substantial portion of the American right has
devoted itself to making it harder for people who are poorer and more
transient to vote.
(John Medearis teaches political theory at the University of
California, Riverside and has written two books on Joseph Schumpeter.
This column was posted first at FryingPanNews.org)
