My thoughts on Proposition 19

[kaysho]

October in California is the start of two seasons: the rainy season and the proposition season.  The first is a result of Mother Nature.  The second is a result of our penchant to want to vote on everything.  I happen to think both are pretty much all wet, but that's another story.

At the top of the ballot this year will be Proposition 19, which

Comments

[kaysho]

California has two problems in that regard. First, the standard to get something onto the ballot is too low. It is easy for an organised, professional, corporate-backed idea to collect enough signatures of registered voters to get pretty much anything onto the ballot, no matter how self-interested that thing may be. The system was designed well before the advent of the professional signature collector.

Second, initiatives are higher-ranking in the legal pecking order than legislation passed by the legislature is (as they have to be, or the legislature could just repeal an initiative), but initiatives are subject to pretty much no legal review other than that which is done by the voters. You can write a blatantly stupid, confusing, ill-worded initiative, and if you get enough signatures, it's on the ballot. Had professional legislators taken a look at it, they could have corrected its flaws; but the voters just have the option of yea or nay to the whole package as written by an amateur.

There have even been a few propositions where even the initial backers of the project said, "Please don't vote for this - we screwed up." :)