One Man Greater Than a City?

In todays government, there are many times were government officials have failed democracy. This was certainly the case, in the situation of the Flint Water Crisis. The Governor and his peers, failed to do the democratic thing, which ultimately led to this crisis to coming into being. How exactly did he fail democracy? He decided it was necessary to appoint an emergency manager who ultimately decided that it was necessary for Flint to switch the location it receives its water, to the Flint river, in order to save money. This would be fine, if it is what the people wanted, but many did not. In fact, many people sought to remove the law which made this appointment of the manager possible.

Many people are looking at this emergency manager law – which allows the governor to skip over the elected government and appoint a single person to control the city’s budgeting- as a huge reason why the crisis happened. Many citizens from the community who are apart of a local coalition are looking for this law to be repealed, and it is a top demand on there list of community priorities.

Picture obtained from http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/Flint-water-crisis-reveals-rupture-democracy/

The people did not want this law so they acted with a veto referendum, and they won. However, the government decided to go above that and amend the referendum, going against the majority.  One huge question that comes to mind is, how is this possible? How can democracy allow for one man to ignore the wants of the majority? Shifting the power from a group of elected officials to the hands of one man is not democracy. This is far more similar to a monarchy, or a dictatorship.  With the ideas of direct democracy in mind, how is it that a small group of people’s ideas can outweigh the majority of the general population? This makes no sense.

If left up to the citizens, the law expanding powers of the city manager and allowing for him to take emergency powers would have surly gone unpassed. One quote from Mill that was seen in a lecture and in Essays on Politics and Society, Mill says, “It is important that everyone of the governed should have a voice in the government, because it can hardly be expected that those who have no voice will not be unjustly postponed by those who have… it is still more important as one of the means of national education…” (Mill 322). While it is certainly true that Mill believes certain people should have more say in politics than others, I believe that the fact that the original bill was rejected by the public should mean that Governor Snyder should not have been able to pass the law without consent of the public. This kind of power should not exist in our democratic form of government.

In my freshman year of college, I had a roommate, Steven Arquette, and he currently lives in Flint Michigan. He has lived there his whole life and I asked him a short list of question about this topic, and his answers are as follows:

            Me:  How has the water crisis impacted you?

S: “I cannot drink the water in my own home, I have to wait for my mom to go out and buy water. We don’t get the donated water because we don’t want to take away from people who are at a greater need. Its was very inconvenient to not have access to clean water on a regular basis. If it was hard for me, I can only imagine how hard it might be for people who are less well off and don’t have access to water like I have. I was lucky.

Me: Who do most people you know blame for this problem?

SA: I think its pretty common for most people to blame Governor Snyder.

Me: What do you think of the government going against the wants of the people by amending their referendum?

SA:I don’t understand how this is possible. How can the government, who is supposed to serve the citizens go completely against what they want?

Me: Do you think the ability to go against the majority, and shift power into the hands of one man is okay in a democratic government?

SA: No it definitely isn’t. It doesn’t make sense how he did this. I assure you most people here did not want the water to be switched to the Flint river. It is gross. I would never want to drink that water. I only wish I paid more attention to this issue as it was happening so I did not ingest that water.

There are many things that can be pointed to as the cause for this failure in democracy to occur. However, the most basic in my opinion is too much power in the hands of one person. Our government allows for the wants of the majority to be basically ignored. It allows for one person to negate the effect of an elected body of officials, and shift its power to one man. Our government contains these elements that do not belong in a true form of democracy. This proves that representative democracy is not true democracy. Failure in democracy will always occur because our government allows it to.

The aftermath of this issue leaves the people of Flint wanting a referendum to remove the law responsible for making this possible in Flint, and also to remove the man responsible.  As a result, the people of flint are still seeking justice, and it is unclear wear they will get what they want, but one thing is for sure, the people have spoken and they do not like the idea that a small group can ignore the wants of the majority. It is definitely clear that the power of a referendum needs to be strengthened, and a small amount of power needs to be taken for the people who represent the government. It should not be allowed for the majorities opinions to be able to be overturned so easily.