There’s only so much democracy I can take. It’s like ice cream. At first taste you never want it to stop. Halfway through the gallon-sized container you realize you’ve made mistake.

Today was an election day in Texas. For most of us, the menu on the ballot was a quilt of sixteen proposed “constitutional amendments.” As it turns out, most of these proposed changes to the state Constitution were actually not categorical principles meant to echo through the ages but nuts-and-bolts measures like transportation and water bonds (excitement!) There was one interesting measure concerning the repeal of the “Inspector of Hides.” I voted to keep the Inspector. Screw you, we’re from Texas!

Anyway, making good decisions on these items was difficult. First, I had to google around for dependable information. Inevitably, this leads to a hunger for more details. Though the League of Women Voters, the dailies and weeklies, and the Legislature itself put out decent “pro/con” pieces, on some of the propositions I just needed more detailed info. I poured in a few hours into it but for about a third of the measures I was guesstimating their actual social impact. I simply could not gather all the information without quitting my job. And while I talked about these topics with a few friends and co-workers, I think I would have benefited from greater discussion.

How I wished there was some way that I could delegate these decisions to some group of people in good standing that I played some role in selecting. It would be awesome if I could maybe directly play a role in choosing them (like on American Idol) and perhaps drop them an e-mail every once in a while if there was some issue I really cared about. Oh, wait…

Americans suffer from “the linear curse” when it comes to democracy. More is always better; the “goodness” of democracy is a steady positive coefficient. We can’t seem to get enough here at home, so sometimes a few of us get carried away in pushing it abroad.

This leads to bad decisions. We create bad institutions such as California’s referendum provisions or this bastardization in Texas. We are over-optimistic about democracy promotion through military means. And so on. In Texas, it’s simply become a way for the Republican-dominated legislature to have its cake and eat it too. The say “no new taxes” and “small government” and then help put up these referendums to adopt infrastructure spending and common sense regulation that the state cries out for.

Unlike a lot of Americans (or Texans for that matter) I don’t think of political gridlock as always a bad thing. Sometimes the balance of power prevents a solution because people genuinely and strongly disagree. I can deal with that and not be frustrated. I am however, frustrated when elected officials depend on referendums to pass policy that has popular support instead of just voting for it themselves. It de-legitimizes government. Maybe that has been the Texas GOP’s goal all along.