Democracy in Thousand Oaks: Why Democracy?
“As free citizens in a political democracy, we have a responsibility to be interested and involved in the affairs of the human community, be it at the local or the global level.”
For those of us who have faith in American democracy, the 2022 midterm election results came as a sigh of relief. Americans rallied to reject the candidacies of election deniers and chose to make our democracy stronger. And while autocratic forces in our country have become prominent and visible, anti-democratic tendencies have always been with us.
For the relatively young city of Thousand Oaks, California, 2022 also marks the tenth anniversary of the Thousand Oaks Right to Vote Initiative – a voter-initiated law requiring that elections be held when vacancies occur on the City Council.
You read that correctly: a law was required in an American city in the 21st century to guarantee that we hold elections.
In this time of national awareness of our democracy, it’s important to reflect on just how critical elections are in our self-governance, and something of which we cannot take for granted. In our city’s history, officials chose undemocratic means to wield their authority. According to one councilmember, on voting to forgo an election when it came to determining who sits next to them on the dais, “that decision is ours.” [2]
Thousand Oaks is a relatively new American city, incorporating in the 1960s at a time of rapid growth in the Southern California region. It started from humble Western beginnings, serving as a backdrop for Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” and eventually became home to the global biotech giant Amgen and over 125,000 residents.
The city came with no established practices on how to govern or long-lived dynasties passing the reins of power down from generation to generation. The people had what they brought with them: their wits, energy, and values, and their collective understanding of American and Californian democracy.
Let me begin with what may seem like a noncontroversial statement: In America, elected officials should be elected.
However, when the principle was applied, public decisionmakers consistently presented rationalizations, passionately argued, for doing otherwise. And these arguments somehow concluded that, when it came to determining who are authorized to make decisions on behalf of the people, the most prudent decision was not to hold an election.
What is most surprising is that this occurred multiple times. In Thousand Oaks, California. In the 21st century.
This happened because there was no actual requirement to hold an election; in these instances, the decision about whether to hold an election was a discretionary one, left to the sitting members of the body. An option, not an obligation.
We take for granted that norms alone can guide our democratic self-governance journey. However, letting the people decide is not a natural impulse. People in power want to be in power, want to stay in power, and dislike when others question their possession or use of power. Letting the people decide is commonly viewed by those in power as a risk, decreasing the likelihood of achieving their aims; as a consequence, ensuring a desired outcome becomes preferable to honoring the voters’ democratically made decision.
True democracy is the antithesis of this human impulse. For this reason, democracy doesn’t just work on its own; it takes time and energy from the people to make succeed. Democracy requires we transfer power peacefully to those chosen by the people; the inclination to prevent others from taking power is the primary force that undermines our democratic ideals and constitutional framework.
It is the responsibility of those who favor democracy to keep it vital; it’s in our own collective interest to do so.
This starts a three-part series on American & Californian democracy viewed through the lens of one modern American city: the microcosm of Thousand Oaks.
In future installments, we will visit three episodes in Thousand Oaks history from the 1990s to the 2020s, where the ideals of American democracy gave way to anti-democratic tendencies for keeping power. Using these chapters as backdrops, we can remind ourselves of the importance of key American democratic principles: the integrity of elections, the right to vote, and the meaning of representation.
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[1] Paul Wellstone, untitled and undated essay, archived September 17, 2019, snapshot of Wellstone Action website, https://web.archive.org/web/20190917035950/https://www.wellstone.org/legacy/speeches/paul-wellstone-quotes, captured November 13, 2022.
[2] Jean Ortiz, “Council to select person to fill seat,” Ventura County Star, December 3, 2005.
