Bob CollinsThere’s a fair amount of head-scratching going on today by people who’ve read Pat Sajak’s — yes, that Pat Sajak — column on the National Review’s website. He asks whether public employees should be allowed to vote.
I’m not suggesting that public employees should be denied the right to vote, but that there are certain cases in which their stake in the matter may be too great. Of course we all have a stake in one way or another in most elections, and many of us tend to vote in favor of our own interests. However, if, for example, a ballot initiative appears that might cap the benefits of a certain group of state workers, should those workers be able to vote on the matter? Plainly, their interests as direct recipients of the benefits are far greater than the interests of others whose taxes support such benefits. I realize this opens a Pandora’s box in terms of figuring out what constitutes a true conflict of interest, but, after all, isn’t opening those boxes Ricochet’s raison d’être?
By this logic, it would seem that gays would not be allowed to vote on a same-sex marriage amendment.
A better question might be whether some ballot initiatives shouldn’t be allowed on ballots at all?
