HAH!

Love the headline. Even the big guys goof. I like the initiative idea.

Don’t throw out the ballot initiative baby with the bad initiative bathwater!

Ballot initiatives are the origin of most reforms, such as women’s suffrage (passed in 13 states before Congress went along), direct election of Senators (4 states), publicly financed elections (by initiative in 6 of 7 states with them), medical marijuana (8 of 13 states) and increasing minimum wages (in all 6 states that tried in 2006). The media have seized on the problem initiatives. They generally kiss up to politicians and downgrade citizens.

Voters on initiatives need what legislators get: public hearings, expert testimony, amendments, reports, etc. The best project for such deliberative process is the National Initiative for Democracy, led by former Sen. Mike Gravel: http://Vote.org. Also http://cirwa.org

Aren’t ballot initiatives kind of pointless when the Supreme Court just turns over what they don’t like?

Why can’t the people just vote and be done with it. If you don’t like what passed, move or try to get another ballot initiative.

Bullshit, I say:

http://www.proctorformayor.com/2008/06/04/no-donny-these-men-are-nihilists-theres-nothing-to-be-afraid-of/

P.S. I don’t support throwing out ballot initiatives.

@aaronproctor: One of the chief duties of the judicial branch in our government is to interpret the laws. Even if a law is passed, it can be declared unconsitutional. It’s how a system of checks and balances works.

[...] Proposition 98 got absolutely mauled at the polls yesterday. I see that as a huge message to the proponents of the measure to get their act together. My attitude is similar to that of Law Professor Gideon Kanner: Rent control was a separate major, controversial subject that had nothing to do with eminent domain (unless you believe that all rent control is a taking — a proposition uniformly rejected by the courts)…Moreover, taking on rent control without a preceding public debate and without an evolution of an organized constituency opposing it, was utter folly. It enabled the opponents of Proposition 98 to ignore its eminent domain reform provisions and to rise in defense of rent control. [...]