The veteran Washington Post political journalist David Broder is here to tell you there's something out there subverting American democracy - and it's American democracy.
Americans disillusioned with DC insider politics are increasingly taking their proposals to the people in the form of ballot initiatives and referenda. It's a romance that began with California's Proposition 13 twenty-two years ago. Since then, Oregon alone has voted on 97 different initiatives.
Voters in Twenty-four states and hundreds of cities across the country have changed laws on things like abortion, casino gambling, campaign spending even bear baiting, nude dancing and thong bathing suits.
Direct democracy sounds like government by the people for the people, but Broder says the initiative process is even more dominated by cash and cronyism than the representative system we've come to distrust. (Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
