When it's politically expedient, government officials will lament voter malaise and its effect on public policy. Office holders suggest that if citizens would only show more interest in the machinations of lawmaking, perhaps taxpayers would get the responsive, efficient government they long for.
So it's ironic, if not hypocritical, when these same elected officials and bureaucrats lash out at voter activism that attempts to limit government power or take it away altogether.
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Take the efforts of Boulder City gadfly Sherman Rattner. He wants Boulder City voters to establish a position on the best use of 107,000 acres of city-owned land. So he collected more than 1,000 signatures on four separate petitions, qualifying each for November's ballot. Among the options: building a solar-power generating station, establishing recreational uses or prohibiting development of any kind.
But two of his questions were unsavory to city officials. The questions proposed selling much of the land for development and splitting most of the auction's proceeds among the city's 15,200 residents of record as of March 31.
Boulder City has long resisted the explosive growth that has transformed the Las Vegas Valley over the past two decades. But would city residents embrace an expanded population if they had a financial incentive to do so? That would have been an intriguing campaign debate.
However, that debate appears dead. On Friday, District Judge Kathy Hardcastle threw all four questions off the ballot on the grounds that, if they were approved, they would take too much power away from Boulder City's government.
"You just want to substitute your judgment for the officials who were elected by the people to make these kinds of decisions," Judge Hardcastle said in her decision.
The constitutionally protected initiative process is, in itself, an exercise in bypassing government authority. If elected officials don't follow the will of voters, citizens can take steps to substitute their own judgment at the polls.
Admittedly, Mr. Rattner's land-sale questions are suspect, especially for creating a nonprofit trust that would be headed by Mr. Rattner himself. But he collected enough signatures to allow votes on his ideas, and no branch of government should cut off his right to petition because it might infringe on the perceived "rights" of government itself.
