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by George W. Wilbur
RICHMOND — Angry cries of protest were heard across Virginia recently when the General Assembly declined to submit the issue of a state lottery to a public referendum. The indignation raised anew the question: how much do Virginians want to be governed and how much do they want to govern themselves?
After the defeat of his lottery referendum proposal, Del. J.W. O’Brien Jr., D-Virginia Beach, said, “I really can’t understand...not allowing people to vote on a referendum. That’s undemocratic to me.”
But what is democracy?
Perhaps the purest form practiced in this nation is the New England town meeting where all of the adult townfolk constitute the governing body and have a vote on every issue. It’s only a workable system, however, when the numbers are small. From a practical standpoint, a representative government based on free elections (a republic) is about as democratic as you
can get.
Nevertheless, hardly a General Assembly session occurs without some legislator urging that a great moral issue be put to the test of a public referendum. “Let the people
95.6%