BENEFITS

Here are four primary benefits of a direct democracy form of government:

1. In a direct democracy, citizens vote in polls that tell their representatives the laws they want passed or rejected, based on the majority of their constituents’ interests and needs. Direct democracy representatives do not make personal decisions for their constituents to follow. Instead, they want their constituents to make personal decisions for them to follow. A direct democracy form of government gives citizens a direct and equal voice in government. Whether they are liberal or conservative, their voices are heard and responded to by their representatives, every day they are in office.

 2.  A direct democracy’s constituent polling will automatically eliminate the financial influence of corporate, wealthy, or foreign donors on legislation. This is because the vast majority of citizens in voting districts are average working-class voters. These voters will then be the majority of decision-makers for laws they want passed, or rejected. It will not make sense for people that live in your voting district (or anywhere else) to try to financially influence your representatives. Only voters in a direct democracy, not dollars, influence the decisions of their representatives.   

 This is because whether voters are wealthy or minimum wage workers in a voting district, everyone has only one vote to cast for or against legislation. A direct democracy gives citizens an equal voice in government, whether they are rich or poor. If wealthy political donors are not happy with any voting decision of a democratic majority in your voting district, they can always use their freedom of speech to protest in the streets.

 3. A direct democracy gives citizens political power that will have more of them involved in government decisions. It makes protesting about government decisions a thing of the past for most voters, because these decisions will result from a majority of those in voting districts. It will magnify the political power of advocacy groups and community organizers to directly influence representatives to address their interests.

Instead of political groups pleading with or protesting against lawmakers over a specific issue, these organizations can learn the voting patterns from any direct democracy lawmaker’s constituents, which are recorded and archived. They can then accurately target specific voting districts that appear sympathetic to their causes. When direct democracy representatives grow in number to show how their constituents vote on these matters, so will the political power of these organizations grow as well.

4. A direct democracy will prevent private political parties from having undue autocratic power over legislation.

For example, US private political party machine bosses select a few of their members for powerful positions of authority over other lawmakers. These bosses can install Speakers of the House, committee chairpersons and others who can block beneficial legislation from passing, or force the passing of harmful legislation. This allows one member of a legislature, from a single voting district, to make a personal decision that affects every other member’s constituents.

For instance, the Speaker of the House or a committee chairperson in Congress can block legislation from passing that would benefit their constituents, as well as the constituents of the other 434 members!

In a direct democracy, this autocratic behavior of today’s privately run political parties will be eliminated, as more voters understand how they can finally have direct political power over lawmaking. However, doing this will require electing a substantial number of direct democracy representatives. Having a direct democracy requires our energies to be focused on finding and electing true public servants, not politicians that argue among themselves as they ignore the people who put them in office.