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There is a reason why America's founders created a representative government, rather than a direct democracy. Representative government makes public-policy sausage that requires a critical selection process for the ingredients, grinds the ingredients extensively through legislative debate, and produces a product that is more likely to be digestible.

Direct democracy, on the other hand, uses large chunks of ingredients, often selected by special-interest groups, rarely ground at all, and then forced into the diet of all the people who have no choice but to suffer the consequences.

Twenty-six states have adopted an initiative process that allows special interest groups to by-pass the restraints of representative government and let direct democracy make the public-policy sausage. California is among the leaders in this process.

In California, voters are being asked to select from a laundry list of candidates for a long list of public offices. Every voter knows how difficult it is to simply get acquainted with the candidates, to learn their position on the various issues of concern. California voters are also being asked to decide 13 public policy issues through the direct democracy ballot initiative process.

This means that in addition to getting acquainted with all the candidates on the ballot, voters are expected to learn the details of the pros and cons of 13 ballot initiatives, which total 180 pages, much of which can be accurately described as mumbo-jumbo. The critical selection process provided by representative government is bypassed, and selection is made on the basis of which special interest group has sufficient funds to pay signature collectors and attorney fees required to get a particular policy chunk on the ballot.

Once on the ballot, the relentless grinding process required by the representative government debate process is also bypassed. Instead, large chunks of policy ingredients are often misrepresented by their proponents and not fully understood by the voters, who must decide to accept or reject the policy proposal.

One of California's 13 ballot initiatives would severely restrict government's eminent domain power. Opponents of the measure don't even address the merits of the issue in their advertising; they simply encourage voters to oppose the measure because it is supported by rich developers and greedy property owners - while being opposed by the League of Conservation Voters and other environmental groups.

Complex issues such as regulatory takings, clean air standards, and the like, cannot be sufficiently ground into digestible public-policy sausage through 30-second TV ads, bumper stickers, billboards, and yard-signs. Public policy should be thoroughly considered in head-on debate by responsible people who are directly accountable to the voters. It's hard enough to get public policy right, even in the best representative government process. But through this process, the sausage, and its makers, can be thrown out, if the end product is indigestible. When indigestible public-policy sausage is made through signatures and sound bites, it's hard to find any who will claim ownership when the product turns out to be rotten.

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