Political promises are generally empty, meaningless gestures made by candidates when they are trolling for votes. “I will listen to all the people,” they say. Or, “I will protect the interests of all ‘the people’ when I am in office.”

Do you believe statements like these when politicians make them? Or, do you shrug them off with the thought in the back of your mind that it’s just more of the political hype that goes with running for office, not really expecting anything except more self-serving actions once candidates are in office?

Thirty years ago, California state Senator H.L. (Bill) Richardson wrote an interesting and insightful book with the intriguing title, “What makes you think we read the bills?” – in which he offers a penetrating analysis of the fact that the so-called majority does not really elect public officials and making the point that politicians are actually obligated to a very small percentage of the voters, and it is this minority they listen to.

Using the example of a district with a population of 525,000, he shows how the candidate who won was elected with a plurality of just 16,000 voters.

Senator Richardson’s observation is something I believe most people instinctively know: that once elected, notwithstanding all their talk about “listening to the people,” politicians do what they want, not what their so-called constituents, “the people,” may say. Politicians generally don’t really listen to anyone except the limited number of supporters who are directly involved in helping them get elected or who help them stay in office.

Some selected quotes from Senator Richardson’s book outline his conclusions:

In a democracy we ‘know’ the majority elects. Right? Wrong! Majorities rarely, if ever, elect. (pg. 112)

In a democracy, most politicians are inevitably influenced by public opinion. Right? Wrong again.” (pg. 112) Note: We have seen some notable exceptions to this rule in recent years, specifically when large numbers of savvy Internet users overwhelm legislators with faxes, email messages and telephone calls about certain hot button issues, such as immigration, which can bring sufficient pressure to bear on office holders to induce them to change a particular position. The Internet, of course, was not available at the time Senator Richardson was in office or wrote his book.

…if we waited for majorities to elect, most of our legislative chambers would be empty. Obviously, only those who register can vote (or so we are told). This eliminates a sizable portion of the eligible voters at the very start. In fact, the very term ‘eligible’ voter tells us that there are those who are ineligible to vote. (pg.112)

Since the contest almost inevitably comes down to Democrat versus Republican, those who register as ‘independent’ or who ‘decline to state’ have little nothing to say in the primary elections. To have a meaningful voice, these independent and uncommitted voters must then choose between the two candidates fielded by the very political parties they have chosen not to join. (pg.113)

Commenting on the fact that less than fifty percent of the registered voters often turn out in a primary election Senator Richardson notes, “A vote delivers the power of the state into the hands of the elected official. A non vote simply transfers the decision as to who shall hold this power into the hands of those who do vote…At this point, another factor comes into play – gerrymandering. Most political district lines are established by the party in power…A candidate with little chance of victory has even a smaller chance of attracting the necessary financial support. Money creates winners and winners attract money. (pg.113)

Since the majority-party primary is usually crowded with a number of hopefuls, the primary winner is quite often nominated with a plurality of twenty-five percent, or even less. I know of one district that had a population of 525,000 persons. About 400,000 could have qualified to vote, but only 225,000 bothered to register. In the primary slightly more than fifty percent of those registered turned out at the polls to vote – about 120,000 people altogether. The minority party garnered 50,000 votes of that total, split between two lackluster candidates. The majority party had eight candidates, of whom five were strong contenders. The remaining 70,000 votes were split among these eight candidates, and the victor won with 16,000. In the general election this candidate easily defeated the minority-party nominee. (pg.114)

Senator Richardson’s book is still available – at Amazon.com. It’s an interesting and entertaining insight into the political process and confirms the fact that things really haven’t changed all that much in the 30 years since he was in office.

© 2008 Harris R. Sherline, All Rights Reserved

NOTE: Read more of Harris Sherline’s commentaries on his blog at “opinionfest.com.”

Democracy is based on the notion that people are best served if they are involved with decisions that affect their lives. It is a wonderful, enlightened notion. Everyone wants to have control over their lives. Sadly, this ideal has been tarnished from the very beginnings, tossed upon the rocks of the one fatal flaw that most people share; we trust ourselves, but not the other guy. Thus, even with our American experiment in Democracy, our founders distrusted the ‘mob’ sufficiently to close normal people off from the every day functions of government; we vote on representatives to take care of our business.

This common theme has divided us up until the present. One of the constant tensions in our political arena is between those who seek a broader role for the Federal government, because they do not trust the people to decide for themselves, over those who believe that the more people have a choice in the decisions being made, the better those decisions will be.

Someone on a political bulletin board, during a discussion on gay marriage, made the point to me that interracial marriage was declared Constitutional by the 13th and 14th amendment. Checking the wording of these amendments, I could see nothing in the wording to indicate that they had anything to do with marriage, and I answered him that, if the Supreme Court did, indeed, make that ruling based on those amendments, it was wrong. Not that I am a lawyer, mind you, but I do believe that laws should be interpreted according to what they say, not what we want them to say … and the Constitution says nothing about marriage.

I further made the point that the States should, certainly, have the right to determine who they want to marry and who they do not want to marry. While I do not endorse qualifications based on the dubious notion that the color of one’s skin makes a difference in whether or not one can be a good marriage partner, the value of a Democracy is the defense of unpopular decisions, and the States have the right to make that distinction.

Here we see the crux of the conflict. Should the 13th Amendment be interpreted by the Supreme Court to include the notion that the freed slaves also should have the right to marry whomever they wish, despite the fact that no such wording exists in the Amendment? It is of benefit to society to grant the same rights to freed slaves as to all other citizens. Shouldn’t the Federal government impose this interpretation on all citizens of the United States? Or is it no business of the Federal government to tell the States what to do at all? Do the people have the right to decide for themselves, or should they be told what to do by a strong Federal government? More basically, do we trust people to, eventually, do the right thing, or do they need to be told to do the right thing?

There is a corollary to those questions which goes to the real meat of the matter. If, in fact, we DO trust the people to do the right thing, are we willing to wait long enough for them to do it? Or is it more important to get the job done quickly enough for people to benefit from the solution?

This nation was founded in Slavery; many contend that the Constitution actually sanctions slavery, as it suggests that Slaves should count for representation in Congress.

Sixty years after the ratification of the Constitution, a great civil war was fought, after which, Slavery was abolished by Amendment to the Constitution…and it took over a hundred more years for the former Slaves to achieve anything resembling equal rights in our society. Many feel that it would have taken far longer, if the Supreme Court, Congress and the President had not extended the force of the Federal government to do so; the Supreme Court in its very liberal interpretation of the Constitution and Amendments to the Constitution, Congress and the Federal government in its use of force to open up schools for minorities and equal opportunity in voting and employment. It is possible that without Federal government intervention, these activities would not have happened even now.

Is this civil rights argument a valid argument for stronger Federal government? It would be hard to argue otherwise. Without Federal intervention, it is very likely that segregation would still be widespread in our country, at least in the Southern States. One hundred and sixty years is a long time for any people to wait for full and free access to the rights of American citizenship.

Yes, there is another way of looking at these events, and that is as a historical progression … and from that perspective, freedom for minorities happened because of historical and economic processes, NOT because the Federal government forced the issue … they would have happened, anyway, in the same time frame, and our use of Federal force speeded up events only by a few years, while damaging the nature of our government. It might have been far better for everyone if the States that practiced segregation realized, on their own, that it would be better to give the franchise of voting to their citizens, rather than continue their primitive ways.

The agitation for Civil Rights in the 1950’s and 1960’s was the result of better living conditions and working conditions that were the natural progression of the opening up of the job market following WWII. This agitation began from the people, NOT from the Federal government. It was the people who agitated to grant voting rights to black people in the south, during the early 1960’s, and the people who agitated to desegregate the schools. The Federal government became involved because of the violence associated with these efforts … and the failure of local governments to ensure the safety of its citizens.

Once the Federal government did get involved, it was hard to stop that involvement. It was the beginning of the discovery of a whole slew of ‘rights’ in the Constitution that never existed before, the ‘right to privacy,’ the ‘right to abortion’ and the ‘right to marry,’ the right of ‘freedom from religion,’ the right to a ‘minimum wage,’ ‘welfare rights’ and so on and so on. Lost in all of this was the right of people to make their own decisions.

Would it not have been much better to allow natural forces to win freedoms for the minority populations of this country? Imagine if the people had forced the governments of segregated States to open up their schools, provide equal opportunity for education, voting and jobs? Imagine that, for those States which refused to grant equal rights to their people, the people had simply left, and those States would have sunk into the poverty that exists in any primitive, totalitarian society? I suggest that the rights that minorities enjoyed today would not have taken much longer to gain, and the cost would have been far less for society as a whole if the Federal government had stayed out of the integration problem totally, except, insofar, as it impacted on Federal law, such as federal voting rights. Such a victory would have empowered the people, not the government, and we all would be far better off, today.