Posted on 04/06/2014 5:27:39 PM PDT by NoLibZone
With the initiative process, both liberal and conservative causes could be realized. Liberal public employee unions, most notably the California Teachers Association, could lock in high levels of education spending with Proposition 98. Fed-up taxpayers could place limits on property taxes with Prop 13. Californians concerned with illegal immigration could pass Prop 187 (if only later to see it fail in court). And those Californians who saw the injustice of state-sponsored racial preferences could ban them with the California Civil Rights Initiative.
But the initiative process, however satisfying it sometimes seems, has also made electoral politics seemingly less important. Whereas other states fight hard to build political majorities, Californians have been happy to elect Democratic legislatures with the occasional Republican governor, leaving anything of import to a vote of the people every two years with a ballot initiative ginned up by a group of concerned or affected citizens. As a practical matter, winning a Republican majority appears to be just not that important, so far, to California’s political and business elites.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the state is run by Democrats. They’ve done such a bang up job with cities they’ve run for generations like Detroit, Chicago, Newark, etc. Why wouldn’t the same thing happen with a state they completely dominate?
We now know that this will never happen. Any time a conservative proposition passes it will now be challenged in court and our Democrat leaders will fail to defend it. If any private citizen tries to carry the challenge through the courts he will be denied for "lack of standing".
The good news is that the progressive, democratic, mob-mentality initiative process is dead.
The bad news is that we now have to get off our collective behinds and work to get some Republicans, or at least pro-business Democrats, elected.
187 did not fail. The gov. (Dim Davis) did not defend it.
The ‘[will of the people] be damned.
Yes, I believe it is the Initiative Process too. It once seemed like a good idea, but instead — special interests whup folks up to do THEIR bidding. Looks like one thing, it really is another. It also lets the politicians in Sacto avoid anything that is not safe, or hide behind ‘the people’ to do it.
We are a Republic not a Democracy, and there are very good reasons for that. I read recently, ‘THE PEOPLE wanted to save the Delta Smelt, so we cut off the water to So Cal and gave it to the smelt.” No responsibility for this in Sacto? You bet there IS!! But those slime-balls teflon it off.
Illegal immigration and the flight of conservatives are the main reasons.
The article says that the reason they elect Democrats is because bypassing the legislature through initiatives thwarts the building of political coalitions that would result in more Republicans being elected.
Not enough tsunamis?
Thanks NoLibZone.
Nice touch. Throw that baby out with the bath water.
Where are you getting your information from? The initiative process is alive and doing well in the Peoples Republic of California.
I k-elp myself.
aisle gee agree
Of course there are a whole lot of idiots in California, so it might take a while for them to get the message.
Mexico will fix it when it takes over
Where does Americas Fruits and Nuts come from?
The answer might give you a clue....
You can’t fix stupid, only breed them out.
Unfortunately the nuts of CA have made that impossible.
Place is doomed.
The citizens exercising their initiative option in CA is the only thing that has kept the democrats from completely turning the state into a purely communist welfare gulag
The same tactics the leftists used to turn California into a deep blue state, they are now attempting to use to turn the United States into a deep blue nation. So if we want to stop them, we should be clear on what has led to their rise - and trust me - it ain't the initiative process.
On the other hand, I remember reading articles about the recent proposal to split the state of California into 6 separate states. Presumably this would result in 10 additional US Senators—almost all of whom will be Democrats. Between that, and the 20 million illegal aliens that we now have, that should pretty well seal the deal for Democrat control of our federal government until the whole thing crashes down from the debt. (Feeling depressed on a Sunday evening.)
It’s not the process.... it’s the people.
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