BELL CURVE:Are petitions good for democracy?

I have no quarrel with the folks who sit at tables in front of my favorite supermarket and solicit my signature on a petition — even when they are being paid for this task and have little interest in the issue they are pushing. All of them — hired guns and passionate citizens alike — are taking small bites out of democracy by a process that has a rich history in this country. It started in Town Meetings 3,000 years ago and has morphed into petitioners in front of supermarkets.

Since I have some reservations about the current application of this process, I tried to clear my head by looking up “democracy” in the dictionary.

Webster defines it as “the free and equal right of every person to participate in a system of government often practiced by electing representatives of the people by the majority of the people.”

Well and good. We’re given a choice of practicing democracy by what is now a greatly oversized Town Meeting or by electing representatives to do it for us.

So what we need to do first is to examine the issue in question to see if it will meet the proper tests for an initiative. Is it of such magnitude that it will attract a significant number of voters — enough to say we are indeed tapping the will of the people? Is it technologically and economically complex enough to require study to cast an intelligent ballot? Is it susceptible to large sums of money more available to one side than the other? Are there clear and obvious special interests at work here to bring extra levels of both economic and emotional pressures to bear?

Addressing these questions leads to another one. Do you think there should be three sets of petition gatherers in Newport Beach rather than two? The third petition would go something like this: “The site of the new City Hall in Newport Beach should be decided by our representatives in government and not by direct vote of local citizens.”

Maybe this could turn out to be a small step forward in answering the Forum letter writer who said: “Our system of government allows the initiative petition method when our elected representatives’ decision can lead to a costly mistake.”

In other words, when we don’t agree with them. I don’t think that was what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

Like their counterparts boxing with a City Hall site in Newport Beach, our elected government in Costa Mesa has its own permanent issue: illegal immigration. By way of keeping them up to snuff on what is going on elsewhere, I would like — in case they missed it — to call to their attention Carrollton, Ga.

There a lady named Emelina Ramirez called the police for help because she was being beaten by several neighbors. The police came — and arrested Emilena who had the misfortune of a name ending in “ez.” She is presently in jail awaiting deportation.

Emilena’s fate is the natural progression of a law recently passed by the state of Georgia called the Security and Immigration Compliance Act. It requires law enforcement officers throughout the state to investigate the citizenship status of anyone charged with a felony or driving under the influence. Emilena was doing neither.

The main impact according to Latino activists is the detrimental affect on Latino relationships with the police. The director of a Cherokee Immigrant Alliance that had been working closely with county police said, “We spent months building up trust, and now we’ve got to start all over again.”

A law professor familiar with the new Georgia Act put it this way: “The fear is that if you put it in the discretion of local law enforcement , you will have situations where they go outside the law … Officers need to understand what is their focus. Do they want to be mini federal immigration officers or do they want to make sure their communities are safe?”

That’s a question that should be constantly paramount here as well as in Georgia.

It came as a bit of a shock to read last week that there are 41 other countries in the world where life expectancy is greater than in the U.S. Admittedly, I may be a little more sensitive to such numbers than most, but the study — which comes from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington — should give us pause.

Turns out that it hasn’t always been that way. We’ve been losing ground steadily in the last few years, especially to countries like Canada and those of western Europe who have national health care.

Researchers say that the main reason we’ve dropped behind is the 41 million people in the U.S. who lack health insurance.

Other factors named are high obesity rates, an uncommonly high rate of infant mortality, and large racial disparities.

The countries with the highest life expectancies?

Tiny Andorra, followed by Japan, Macao, San Marino and Singapore. I have a feeling we could put Newport-Mesa up against any of them.