Will of the People

[Brian Howell]

My other post on judicial retention is really about direct democracy. About 1/2 of the States have some form direct democracy and California is a poster child for it: by plebiscite we've recalled state supreme court justices, thrown a governor out of office, and voted in favor of all manner of referenda. 

California instituted direct democracy in 1911, as a tool against the growing influence of corporate interests on its elected government. To wit, Gov. Leland Stanford's, one of the Big Four founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, appointment of the railroad's chief counsel to the state's supreme court. (Book recommendation: The Octopus.)

We have a state legislature that is hamstrung by a 110 page state constitution (one of the longest in the world) laden with the residue of referendums—which don't have sunset provisions and which cannot be undone by the legislature even if they turn how to have unforeseen and/or deleterious consequences. A lot of effort is spent by our judicial system disentangling conflicting referenda—when its jurists are not otherwise engaged in running for reelection. And our elections are now clogged with referenda, often in dueling pairs, and they're getting crazier and crazier (okay, so this one almost certainly never stood a chance of actually making it on to the ballot), which primarily serve to confuse and overwhelm the electorate. Many referenda are initiated by well financed, self-interested corporations and organizations, who carefully word their campaigns to hide their true goals to all but the most semantically astute. In other words, the initiative process's has been largely coopted by the very forces it was created to counteract.

Oh, and don't forget that when we kicked Gray Davis out of office, we wound up with the Gubernator.

I used to be for direct democracy.

http://www.economist.com/node/18586520

[Jack Saunders]

The initiative process is used today primarily as a campaigning strategy to excite the C students so they will be motivated to talk up the election in apocolyptic terms, thus becoming defacto campaign workers.  The trick is to excite your own while seeming too beyond the pale to other side's base.  It's called "asymmetric outrage."

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[Matt Fish]

I have nothing astute to add, but I do want to loudly agree with Brian that direct democracy has hamstrung the state and made chaos out of our constitution. I'd like to see it end, along with a re-write of our state's constitution. I hope this thread continues.... 

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[jack saunders]

Alexis Tsipris had a point last week when he triumphantly declared that he had proven that big shots "cannot blackmail a true democracy."  In a republican form of democracy, a few elites gather behind closed doors (as in 2008 financial crisis) and decide what measures are needed to at least protect the "too big the fails."  But in a plebiscite world, you get a Tea Party solution from the get-go.

 

Which is better?  Depends on the situation -- but it's almost never going to be a call for austerity.

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From: Matt Fish <mattfi...@gmail.com>
To: Jack Saunders <Jack...@pacbell.net>; Brian Howell <bdho...@gmail.com>
Cc: "Ipse-...@googlegroups.com" <Ipse-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 9, 2015 1:37 AM
Subject: Re: [Ipse Dixit] Will of the People

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/Ipse-dixit/CAEyQXcxhPF_RU9XkT_0%2BP5V32R6ZNC_jMpZ6d5FZOjd5AtQPMw%40mail.gmail.com.