A Creative Partnership of Citizens and Government

by Nan Waterman*

ONFIDENCE in and respect for our public institutions have tumbled so C low that society is being adversely affected. No major public or private institution is exempt from the decline in trust. As public confidence dropped precipitously, fewer eligible voters have voted in each successive Presiden- tial and Congressional election since 1960 and 1962. In effect, an increasing number of voters has been choosing “none of the above.”

Our expectations are now so low that the mere absence of evil in govern- ment is treated as a positive good. There is a deep and pervasive anti- Washington mood. Part of the problem has been that citizens have felt left out of the political process , whether the issues concerned political parties, taxes, war and peace, or schools. Their frustrations are compounded when what is supposed to be their government does not seem to be working in their interests. They believe it has become an insiders’ game, manipulated by special interest arrangements between the regulators and the regulated.

These frustrations, combined with a healthy impulse to do something about it, triggered the growth of public interest organizations. As one of these organizations, Common Cause is building a constituency that is deter- mined to make government institutions responsive, accountable and open, and government policies workable and understandable. We want citizens to be able to participate in decisions that affect their lives.

What do we mean by the phrase citizen participation? It might be de- scribed as an idea whose time has come, yet it is in danger of getting lost in all the jargon, bureaucratic lip service, manipulations and misconceptions which have sprung up around it.

The 1960s and early 1970s could be labeled the dawn of a new kind of citizen participation. During those years we heard a great deal about the duty of government to be representative, responsive and accountable, even though this meant sacrificing the almost deified virtues of economy and efficiency. Many groups in society were speaking out, frequently and some- times with loud voices. Some said they felt they were not being represented adequately in city halls and county courthouses; some said they were frus- trated because the public decisions they helped to make seemed to be dissipated by bureaucrats. Others said they were disappointed by the lack of leadership on the part of elected officials and appointed public servants. Others almost screamed in rage at being left out of the system and demanded to be let in.

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* Nan Waterman is chairwoman, Common Cause. She formerly was vice president, League of Women Voters of the United States. This is her address, November 14, 1977, at the 83rd National Conference on Government in Denver.

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Since the early OEO and Community Action Program days, many gov- ernmental programs have been organized with a requirement for citizen participation, including model cities, urban renewal and anti-poverty ef- forts. The latest and probably best examples are the requirements for citizen participation in decisions about shared revenue funds and for public hear- ings on environmental quality decisions. We are getting better at the game. “We” means both the citizens who have learned at least something about how to make an impact on government, and government officials, who have learned how to create real opportunities for participation. Much of this sophistication has grown out of the increasingly realistic evaluation by citizens of the quality of the citizen participation mandated by certain laws, amounting to outrageous tokenism in some cases and downright phoniness in others.

Some of the worst examples occurred during the early and middle years of OEO programs when public officials, even with the best of will, could not get enough citizens to participate on a voluntary basis on the overview boards required by law. Equally bad were the really flagrant examples of deliberate manipulation of citizen boards to legitimize grant requests which did nothing but perpetuate another bureaucracy.

All of these examples have contributed to a certain cynicism about “citizen participation.” Add to these examples the long history of what I call the “elitist syndrome,” whereby ad hoc and ongoing boards and commissions, particularly at the state level, have been filled either by appointment of well-known public figures, businessmen and academicians-n the theory that they are better qualified to make judgments because their knowledge and experience are superior to that of “ordinary citizens”-or by passing out political patronage plums.

Such cynicism was also fed by what could be called the outside, sometimes desperate efforts to influence public policy, such as the Vietnam War moratorium and campus noting. While these efforts may not be perceived as citizen participation in the classic sense, such as voting, or in a more activist sense, such as volunteer community or state government service, they cer- tainly were citizen attempts to influence public policy decisions.

It is no wonder that out of this welter we are having trouble defining just what we mean by citizen participation, and how it can best be used to achieve needed change which citizens themselves identify as desirable.

Over the years, citizens have become increasingly responsible in their efforts to influence public policy, and government has learned some impor- tant lessons about which methods of participation do and do not work. It seems to me that we are now ready to move to a new stage and develop new forms of creative citizen participation-that involvement and intervention by citizens in the governmental process which is needed to bring about change which citizens themselves have identified as desirable.

This is not to say that citizens should participate in all policy decisions. After all, in most cases, citizens should be able to have influence through their elected representatives. Attempting to involve citizens in a primary role

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in all public decisions could only lead to anarchy. On the other hand, if the bureaucracy had always recognized that it had a constituency of citizens, to whom it should be responsible and accountable, there would be far fewer frustrated, angry and alienated citizens’ demanding to make decisions them- selves.

We have to think through carefully at what level, when, where, why and how we want citizen participation, and in which decisions, and when we should rely on our elected and appointed officials to make the decisions, and when we need a healthy mix.

In the broader view, of course, citizen participation has always been an integral part of our democratic system. It has exerted pressure for change and brought about at least some sense of accountability on the part of our officials. What we are struggling with now, in contemporary society, is a way to make sure that those options for participation remain open in a way that is satisfying to citizens and demonstrates to them that, when properly used, their involvement achieves desirable results. Since society itself is far more complex now than when our political system was devised, and since the issues are more complex, keeping those options for participation open is a fairly complicated task. In addition, there are radical differences in people’s priorities and perceptions of what is desirable. It is when the participation addresses itself to the resolution of those conflicting priorities, involving both citizens and officials, that I think it serves the most beneficial purpose.

Government needs to know what citizens think and what their priorities are. Creative citizen participation will recognize that some types of govern- ment decisions are appropriate for direct citizen involvement, while others are not. Differences exist, and government should provide for variations in the type of direct or indirect involvement it seeks.

Direct citizen participation can occur in a number of types of situations. One important and growing use of direct participation is through “futures” programs. These programs, started by over 40 state, local and regional governments, are experimenting with what Alvin Toffler has called “an- ticipatory democracy.’’ These projects-such as Alternatives for Washing- ton, Hawaii 2000, and then-Governor Carter’s Goals for Georgia-have used a variety of techniques to allow citizens to set goals and priorities.

Another mode of direct participation is the policy impact statement. This idea is an extension of the environmental impact statement which has institutionalized consideration of environmental factors in federal decision making. The policy impact statement process would require that on pro- posed agency policies of major importance the appropriate agency could release to the public, through various means, summary statements of the problem, and alternative solutions with the potential economic, social and environmental consequences of each one. Public discussions would be held throughout the country. Agency officials would be assigned to attend these regional discussions to help formulate a proposed policy. The specific pro- posal would then be the subject of further regional discussions, and adop- tion, or possibly revision, would follow.

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Behind both the “futures” discussions and the policy impact statement is the premise that government must become involved to a much greater extent in enhancing and assuring citizen participation. Simply enacting sunshine laws, while a good start, is not enough. To make such participation possible, the government must adjust its current internal decision making processes, so that the public may be informed on the basic issues and alternatives under consideration, and then it must allow the public to participate in influencing those choices.

For all government entities, the objective should be to increase the num- ber of players in the game, help them to understand the issues under consideration and encourage them to make their opinions heard. In situa- tions where it is not practical to involve the general public, the basic objective can be met by increasing the number of organizations involved to ensure that a greater variety of viewpoints will be represented. That is truly responsive government.

There are some basic ways in which the government can help the outside groups participate on those critical matters that affect us all. It can make sure that the new “sunshine” law works; it can provide new forms of public access to government; it can improve the process of redressing citizen griev- ances; and it can assure greater citizen access to the courts.

First, let’s make the government in the sunshine act work. The law requires open meetings in multi-member federal agencies. It should be one basic tool in an all-out, affirmative, anti-secrecy approach by government. Yet a recent Common Cause study, Shadows Over the Sunshine A c t , re- vealed that, in the first quarter after the new law took effect in the spring of 1977, less than 40 percent of agency meetings were entirely open.

Another recent Common Cause study, With Only One Ear, found that federal regulatory officials see 10 industry representatives for each consumer they meet with. To remedy this imbalance and to enhance the participation of citizens, the government could provide funds to constituency-based groups that are affected by government decisions but cannot afford to intervene in administrative proceedings.

Another useful administrative change would permit citizens to initiate rule-making proceedings where agencies fail to consider a matter. There would be no requirement that the agency act favorably on the petition, but only that it give the petitioner a chance to make his or her case and, if it is denied, a chance to appeal.

The most frequent dealings that citizens have with the federal government are in seeking redress of grievances that stem from bureaucratic misman- agement or inaction. Most citizen complaints seek remedial actions by government agencies that will respond not only to the individual who filed the complaint but to other offended parties as well. Those complaints, however, are too often lost in red tape, backlogs, and the very kind of mismanagement that the complaints themselves are addressing. Many are never responded to at all.

One solution would be creation of a central ombudsman or public advo-

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cate office in the executive branch. This office would not take over the handling of all complaints, but would play an oversight and monitoring role with respect to complaint handling by federal agencies. While legislation is necessary to establish a federal ombudsman with ideal independence and authority, a significant central ombudsman operation could be implemented by Presidential executive order.

Judicial relief is the final remedy available to citizens when agencies and commissions abuse their powers or ignore their responsibilities, a d when broad classes or the general public are injured by private wrongs. The role of citizens in seeing that government agencies operate in an accountable man- ner could be significantly enhanced by allowing citizen standing to enforce laws and regulations where an agency refuses to take action, providing attorney’s fees to successful plaintiffs in cases of public interest, and remov- ing unreasonable barriers to class action lawsuits in situations where finan- cial losses to individuals are too small to warrant individual lawsuits.

None of these means of participation is designed to limit conflict. In fact, continuing argument and dialogue are necessary elements of a democratic process. Creative citizen participation should be viewed not as a romantic ideal but as an ongoing method of involving more people in government decision making.

Making government more open to public participation, however, will work only if citizens take seriously their responsibilities to watch the gov- ernment.

All of us-citizens, the media, educational institutions-have some basic responsibilities.

-We must become informed, for without information we cannot act effectively .

-We must prize our right to dissent. That is not a dirty word, by the way. It describes an affirmative process by which policy is hammered out.

-We must cherish our ownership of our government. As responsible owners, we must demand effective, responsible performance from our public “servants .”

An important part of citizen action is to encourage public servants to be leaders and then to allow them to lead. Good public servants must be free to mediate among the myriad pressures placed on them and finally to make a choice, As citizens, we should certainly make our concerns and desires known. But we have an equal responsibility to give our support to a good public official who makes a responsible decision-whether or not we totally agree with that decision. We want leaders who will listen to us and respond to our needs and concerns, but we also want leaders who are not afraid to exercise judgment, who will make demands on us and bring out the best in us. Only an active, informed, responsible electorate can make such leader- ship possible.