Tom Keane

Power to the People? Not Always

Some things are best left to undemocratic bodies

Democracy is overrated.

Boston mayoral aspirant Sam Yoon learned that lesson recently. Outlining some ideas in his campaign announcement, Yoon said, "We need to talk about what it would mean to go back to an elected School Committee." From the reaction, you'd have thought Yoon had said he enjoyed abusing puppies. Both daily papers here thundered their disapproval. "Astonishing ignorance," editorialized the Herald. "Bury this bad idea," added the Globe. Yoon, stung and seemingly chastened, quickly backtracked, offering a mealy-mouthed explanation that he didn't really support an elected committee but that it should be "part of the discussion" -- whatever that means.

But really, what's so bad about electing school committees? Many cities and towns in Massachusetts do so, and they're popular around the country as well. Not in Boston, however. City residents used to elect their School Committee, but in 1992, Mayor Ray Flynn spearheaded an effort to take that power away from voters and put it in the hands of the mayor. That appointed School Committee -- now just seven members instead of its original 13 -- survived a referendum in 1996. The whole thing seemed settled, until Yoon (or at least Yoon, Version I) saw fit to challenge it.

The reason given then, and now, for abolishing the elected committee is that its members behaved, not surprisingly, like politicians. Observers compared them to the Three Stooges. Meetings were often off-point, some members were corrupt, education took a back seat to patronage, and the budget mostly ran at a deficit.

That certainly sounds terrible, until one considers that many of the same charges could be made against any elected body. Congress runs massive deficits, the last three speakers of the Massachusetts House have resigned under ethical clouds, and much of the agenda of the City Council is preoccupied with trivia. In fact, elected bodies at all levels are filled with members who are buffoonish, incompetent, and far more concerned with the perks of power than the public weal. So why not abolish them all? At least we'd save money on elections.

Perhaps we should. Here's the thing Yoon missed: We're not really the democratic nation we fancy ourselves to be. We often don't trust ourselves as voters, and we certainly don't trust the politicians we elect. Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms," but he was only partly right. Results matter. Many times, democracy produces bad results, and when that happens, we are readily willing to get rid of it.

It's been this way from the very first. The US and Massachusetts Constitutions both are designed with mechanisms to thwart the will of voters. Take the judiciary, for example. Justices are appointed. Voters can't oust them, no matter how much they disagree with their decisions. And judges understand that one of their intended roles is to sometimes countermand the will of the majority. That happens most obviously in the case of civil rights. The Supreme Court abolished segregation even when the clear majority of those living in Jim Crow states favored the system. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court approved same-sex marriage, again despite the clear wishes of a majority at the time.

Anti-democratic? Absolutely. And if you're black or gay (or, for that matter, a female, immigrant, dissident, member of an unpopular religion, and so on), you're probably quite happy to see democracy trumped.

But our anti-democratic impulse goes well beyond issues of civil rights. The basic functioning of the US economy is controlled by the Federal Reserve Board. No one elects its members, and, indeed, because terms are staggered, even the president has limited influence. Closer to home, our state government is loaded with anti-democratic independent public authorities (Mass. Pike, Massport, and the like).

The logic for Boston's appointed School Committee is really the same one that underlies the creation of all these anti-democratic institutions. The existing system wasn't working. The messes of politics -- the compromises, the short-term thinking, the need to please constituents, the lack of accountability, and the battles for election -- were interfering with getting the job done. That may offend our cherished democratic sensibilities, but those who care about educating a kid couldn't care less.

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, May 24, 2009.  Illustration by Heads of State.

In Fenway, Frustration Brews

A beer policy treats first-class fans like second-class citizens.

On a cool afternoon, the Red Sox are losing and it's enough to make me want to cry in my beer -- if I had one. But I don't and the prospects aren't looking good. I'm in the middle of a long row, even if I went the lines are long (behind or not, I still came to see a game), and the return trip would be fraught with the embarrassment of a misstep spilling suds on those around me. I gloomily contemplate my beer-less life when in front of me I see - can this be! - a man with a case of Heinekens on his head, hawking beer as if it were Coke. I wave, trying to attract his attention, but no luck. I'm in the grandstands, he's in a box section, and he won't come to me.

In fact, he can't. Those are the rules. Beer vendors at Fenway Park can ply their trade in the field boxes, the dugout seats, and up in the pavilions, areas where customers pay more for their tickets. Fans elsewhere have to fetch their own. Curious. Other Major League teams allow seatside beer sales throughout their parks. So too does Gillette Stadium. But Daniel Pokaski, chair of Boston's liquor licensing board, says he's not inclined to allow expanded seatside vending; he worries, for instance, about checking IDs. (Hmm, doesn't seem to be a problem in Foxborough.) Nor do the Red Sox want to push the matter, telling me, not very credibly, that more beer vendors would congest the aisles. (Come on, now. Congestion comes from those getting their beers. Seatside service would reduce that.) Moreover, says team spokeswoman Susan Goodenow, "fans don't mind getting up" to buy their beers. Right. If that were true, then why is seatside service considered such an amenity in the few areas where it's allowed?

What's really going on here? It's all about money. Not making it, but who has more of it. The beer polloi, those of us sitting in the (relatively) cheap seats, are out of luck. "It's elitist," Pokaski frankly admits. Indeed, it is, with the somewhat outrageous subtext being that only the rich can be trusted to hold their liquor.

Beer vendors used to roam Fenway Park until the 1970s, when increasingly drunk and rowdy fans provoked the team to put in place tough new rules: Beer would be served only at concession stands, patrons were limited to two beers with each purchase, and sales would stop after the seventh inning. Interestingly enough, those new rules didn't stop the misbehavior. In fact, things seemed to get worse (the early 1990s saw several cases of blowup sex dolls being batted around the stands). The Fenway we now think of as "family-friendly" emerged only when the team started strictly enforcing rules of behavior, tossing out patrons who got out of line (including even those who used profanity).

With the sale of the team to John Henry and company in 2002 (the Globe's corporate parent, the New York Times Co., also owns 17 percent of the club), the Sox moved to reintroduce limited seatside sales. The first attempt, in 2004, was greeted dismissively by city officials. (Boston mayor Thomas Menino fulminated that "Fenway Park is not a bar, it is not a pub, and the product in question is not simply a bag of peanuts.") But two World Series wins apparently softened hearts, and last year the Sox sold beer seatside for the first time in decades.

So far, the rowdiness hasn't returned. But that's not surprising. There are two schools of thought about how best to encourage appropriate public behavior. One, a prohibitionist approach, bans or regulates access to products (beer, guns, drugs) that are thought to cause misconduct. The second imposes consequences for misbehavior. I'm a believer in the latter, and the Sox experience seems to validate it.

But that applies to everyone, not just the rich. I understand the Sox taking the baby step of experimenting with seatside service in a few areas, but now they should be pressing to make it available to all. The excuses I get for not doing so just don't cut it, especially when other sports teams seem to make it work.

Granted, this is not the world's most momentous issue, but it is illustrative of a disturbing prejudice about those without wealth that runs though society. I don't mean to sound too much like a Marxist on this. It doesn't bother me that those with more money get to sit closer to the field. But to use wealth as a marker to deny beer sales to one's seat? Ridiculous. Beer drinkers of Red Sox Nation, unite! You have nothing to lose but your thirsts.

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, May 10, 2009.