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# Bad government is the problem of the people
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/bad-government-is-the-problem-of-the-people/
- Published: 2003-09-10T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:58:18.000Z
- Author: David Pisarra
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

It doesn’t matter whether or not you are a Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green, Yellow, Purple, Communist, Socialist or undecided, we all love to complain about our elected officials.

Either they are taxing us too much, or not enough. There are too many services, not enough services. Everyone has an opinion, usually based on no facts.

The $66 million spent on the new Public Safety Facility is either a brilliant stroke of master planning, or a debacle of pork for the contractors. As with all things, there are two sides to everything and at least two ways of looking at a situation.

I’m a business lawyer. I see the world as a businessperson. I believe that government should be run like a business and any good business must do its part to ensure that the environment it is working in remains healthy.

In a few weeks, we are going to be deciding whether or not to recall an elected official to the highest office in our state. We have a long history in California of the recall. Most recent governors have had to fight a recall effort and they have all been lucky enough to not have the bad timing of a stock market “adjustment,” an electricity robbery, a burgeoning state budget, huge increases in our population and a coordinated enemy.

It’s an ironic quirk of democracy that we have the problems we do. You see, in a democratic society, we do not place any real qualifications on our leaders. They must be citizens and residents of the area they are to represent. They must be of legal age and registered voters. Other than that, we demand nothing of them. Anyone who can convince a majority of the voters to vote for them, can win.

As a society we do not require that our leaders have any particular educational background that fosters in them a strength for governing. We do not say that the mayor should have a degree in political science such that he or she is qualified to run a city of 86,000 people.

We do not set a standard for our governor to be a person of high intellectual ability who is proven to be a visionary. Our city council is comprised of people who are interested, dedicated, concerned, but are they qualified? And what would that mean anyway? Do we as a society want only business people? Or do we want only overly sympathetic, career politicians? Do we want people who are only college graduates or would we be better served by those who learned at the school of hard knocks? Each of these questions must be answered by the voter as they make their decision. This is why it is so important to vote, to voice your opinion.

It’s said that in America every vote counts once, (except in Chicago). I think that’s wrong. I think that every vote counts twice, once for the voter and once for the people who don’t vote. Everyone that abstains, which really is just a nice way of saying “I’m too lazy to make a decision,” is allowing someone else to decide for them. That allows a small number of voters to make big decisions for everyone.

But if the candidates are not qualified before they run, and few people vote, then who can we blame when we have “bad government?” Ourselves. We have only ourselves to blame, by not demanding more of our elected officials — not after they are in office — but before they run. We get the candidates we demand, who then become the government we want, not the government we wish we had in a perfect world.

If I want a pro-business government I have to demand that the candidates have demonstrated in the real world a business acumen that they will bring to the needs of our fair state. And then I have to vote for them.

If I want an environmentally aware governor, I better demand that the candidates have some understanding of how the environment really works. Not just the political environment, but the real one, the one with fish and trees and stuff.

If I want a fiscally aware city council, I have to demand that they have a working knowledge of a balance sheet. They must understand the way a profit and loss statement works, and then be able to translate it into the income and expenses of the city government. Our city works on an annual budget, but looks to a five-year projection. The city council must understand that today’s income is not guaranteed to be here tomorrow, so they better be careful when they commit the city to long term objectives that must be paid for with income from future years.

It is all well and good to feel compassion for various interest groups. I have a couple of interest groups that I want the city council and the governor’s office to care about. I want a healthy business environment and I work with my clients to assure that their small part of the economy works well.

But at the end of the day, what I care most about is whether or not the people in power are smart enough to make decisions that are right for the greatest number of people. Even when that decision is not popular and they won’t be re-elected as a consequence of it.

The election process is supposed to weed out the weak and the unqualified. We as voters are required to vet our candidates. We are supposed to examine their qualifications. To be a candidate requires no real standards, but to be elected should. (David Pisarra is a partner in the Santa Monica law firm of Pisarra & Grist. He (310) 664-9969 or by e-mail at)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 10, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/091003.pdf?ref=smdp.com)