Monday, March 25, 2013

What's Happening In The States?

A good article in today's New York Times by columnist Bill Keller examines how it comes about that there is such a wide variation in laws passed recently by state legislatures. Equally puzzling is the national gridlock in the Congress.

Keller describes a number of alternate explanations offered by political scientists. I find one explanation is probably the most accurate: political outcomes are determined by an activist elite of about 15 percent of the populace, combined with a largely indifferent public. Or maybe it isn't that the public is indifferent. Maybe it is that they are confused and ill-informed.

How to address that may be the greatest challenge to democracy in today's world.


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