By Doug Miller
Last weekend, I got a lesson on how not to run a referendum. But first, some background.
My great-grandfather came to New York from Poland at the beginning of the last century. He got here the hard way, shoveling coal into a steamship's furnace. Once here, he worked where work was available, taking jobs Americans wouldn't do - among them, building the Triborough Bridge. He married a Polish girl and, in 1911, they gave birth to my grandmother. She in turn married the son of Polish immigrants who worked throughout New York City as a carpenter.
I mention this because I'll bet my grandfather and great-grandfather would be proud to know that modern men and women just like them, some of whom are probably my distant cousins, helped to bring down the European Union's proposed constitution over the weekend. And they did it in the time-tested tradition of scaring the hell out of the French.
I was in Paris with my family for a brief vacation over the weekend, and was surprised to learn there was going to be a national election on Sunday to ratify the E.U. constitution, which was written largely by French President Jacques Chirac. I had no idea in advance that this was happening - I get my news from the Golf Channel - but immediately I threw myself into studying the issue.
Chirac, like the leaders of the other 24 E.U. nations, had the option of seeking a ratification vote in Parliament - viewed as the easier, softer way - or by national referendum. He made the decision last year to put the vote to the people, thinking that a strong win would bolster his government.
It was a no-brainer at the time: Chirac's approval ratings were in the 80s thanks to his government's policy of bashing the U.S. at every opportunity. And, after all, the E.U. constitution was designed to keep countries like France from fading into irrelevance in the U.S.'s shadow.
But then the economy turned and Chirac's numbers dipped into the 30s. His referendum's fortunes apparently went with it. On Sunday the constitution lost by about 10 points.
For the why, the pundits pointed to those Polish cousins of mine, who became the Willie Hortons of the election. The constitution not only would guarantee free trade between the 25 nations, it would ensure the free movement of labor. Just as New Jersey workers commute into Manhattan, Polish laborers, voters were warned, would invade the French economy, working their barbaric five-day weeks and accepting only a month or two per year of paid vacations. "L'esclave dit oui, l'homme libre dit non!" ("The slave votes yes, the free man votes no!") shouted posters hung all over Paris. Catchy.
Of course, the "oui" camp used fear just as readily as the "nons." The defeat of this constitution, they promised, would ensure that an economically defenseless France would be steamrolled in this century by the U.S., China, Russia and/or al Qaeda.
But the actual contents of the constitution - all 450 pages of it - was nowhere to be found in the debate. Ultimately, the issues were lost in the demagoguery. After reading everything I could find, I still had no idea how I would have voted.
So, after watching this unfold, I got to thinking about our (comparatively) minor domestic squabbles in Long Beach. Each year the city holds a referendum on its school budget, and each year it's the same nonsense: Vote against and you hate kids, vote for and you're playing into the hands of the teachers' union. Meanwhile, average voters hold their noses and vote the way that seems personally the least offensive, having never actually read what they're voting on.
And this year we get this environmental bond vote. The electioneering has begun already, with "pocket parks" playing the role of the Polish laborers. We have no idea where or how this money will be spent - or what kind of usurious interest we will have to pay on it - but we are already being told by the bond's opponents that it will be wasted on little parks that are too small to be useful or to justify their cost.
My suggestion to the City Council's Republican majority, which will sponsor this referendum: tell us everything. No theories. No "well, we'd like to..." Tell us where every dime of the $20 million will go. Tell us how this fits in with our plan for a Master Plan. Then tell us why.
Take the politics, the name-calling, etc., out of this election and there can be real debate. "Pocket parks" might be nice once we know what they'll look like, and this might be our last chance to do something real for open space in the city.
But as it stands today, this vote looks like it's going to be bitter and divisive, and we will be asked to vote on issues that nobody really understands, swayed by whoever serves up the cleverest slander.
To avoid that, the GOP needs to have enough faith in its proposal - and in the voters - to lay it all out on the table.
French President Chirac erred in thinking voters would support his document simply on his say-so. Similarly, if the Republicans treat the bond as merely an extension of their slate, they should be prepared for the worst.
