EDITORIAL: Referendum on South Shore expansion would set a bad precedent

Times of Northwest Indiana

Porter County's three commissioners have proposed putting the question of expanding South Shore rail service to the voters, in the form of a referendum. They should be nervous about the precedent.

There's a reason the state makes it so difficult to put initiatives like this on the ballot.

The commissioners' sentiment is that because the project seems likely to involve a local cost, the voters should be allowed to have a voice.

But they already have a voice -- the officials they elect to represent them. In a representative democracy, the voters elect the people who act on the voters' behalf rather than have the voters make all those decisions themselves.

Besides, any project of this magnitude will have plenty of public hearings and other ways for the public to speak their mind.

In states like California, ballot initiatives are encouraged so voters can circumvent decisions their elected officials are making on their behalf. The idea might sound promising, but the result has been less than stellar. State government officials have been hamstrung by these referendums.

In Indiana, the property tax reforms have included a new law, which took effect July 1, that now sends major government construction projects -- including schools -- to a referendum instead of the former method of competing petitions.

That, too, is inadvisable.

If the door is opened to ballot initiatives -- not just school construction but also whether to expand the South Shore -- at what point will government budgets be put to a vote? And what happens if the referendum fails?

To amend the Indiana Constitution, it takes the approval of two sessions of the Indiana General Assembly -- with an election between those two sessions -- to approve a referendum for the voters to approve the amendment.

It is good to make it difficult for the public to make decisions so quickly. Leave that to the elected officials who represent them.