Posted on 11/04/2009 7:26:26 PM PST by indianrightwinger
It is too hard for me to swallow the fact that a properly passed law in Maine was repealed in a public referendum. This just seems wrong. The proper course of action was to throw out the bums who passed the law in the first place and then have a subsequent legislature / Governer repeal the law. While the "outcome" in this case was favorable to conservative point of view, it is impossible for me to see how it benefits the conservative movement in the long run. Remember, gay marriage was made legal in Maine by the elected government - NOT juducial fiat like in other cases. I am all for public referendums on judicial activist rulings that "make" law. Maine case is utterly different.
Many states have the referendum option written into their constitutions. I’m damn glad they do.
The public overruled the elected representatives who did not follow their wishes.
Referendum is a much more timely process for redress than your “throw the bums out” approach. There is plenty of time to get rid of the legislative miscreants AFTER the people correct the flawed legislation by referendum.
Liberals can also use the referendum process to overrule conservative laws. So, is it not better to fix the real problem - throw the bums who passed the bill and signed it into law. Then, use the same legislative process to repeal it.
Anyway, I would have much preferred that approach.
Judicial fiat is a totally different story.
Such deep and thoughtful thinking must really be taxing.
We tried to play that exact same card in Washington State, but ACORN still has its tentacles all through King County, so it lost in a squeaker.
You can’t accept that the people can make a decision in a state wide vote? Give it some more thought.
What better expression of democracy could you have than a referendum? In addition, this expression of democracy does not, in any sense, mistreat any minority (although the gay community will argue to the contrary). Finally, nothing about this referendum prevents any voter from voting against any legislator. Maybe someone will think your complaint makes sense, but not me.
Propositions in California tend to be annoying because nearly always the only proper vote is HELL NO.
I don't believe that it's the federal government's place to have any say in gay marriage (or abortion), but I applaud the election results in Maine. Marriage is between a man and a woman and abortion is murder. It's just that it's up to state law to enforce that.
/highfive to the voters in Maine.
For me I agree with you but as I don’t live in Maine who am I to tell them not to allow popular referendums..
Why can’t they do both. They can get immediate remedy through referendum and make sure the clowns who voted it in originally are thrown out. That will put the fear of God in those left over and anyone who may try to do the same thing in the future.
Exactly. This is a 10th amendment issue and the great state of Maine has every right to determine how they will be governed.
I’m not real happy with “law” being made by majority rule. Our system of government wasn’t set up that way for a very good reason. As you said, this worked in conservatives favor this time, but I don’t like the idea that it could be used in a very bad way next time.
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I am from CA. Really supported prop 8 YES vote. I voted YES on it. In CA, it was done by judicial fiat. So, a referendum was the only recourse.
Exactly the point.
Can’t endorse a process because it produced a favorable outcome in one case or a few cases.
Of course they do. And, so do I to express myself. First amendment (comes before the 10th). :-)
If the referendum is legal under the state’s constitution, what is the problem?
Following the rules also means using them to one’s best (legal) advantage.
Ref 71 is passing in Washington.
The concept is - the public can overturn bad legislation through the referendum process. I think it is a good safeguard that I wish were used MORE often.
What ever happened to the will of the people? While the bums that passed the bad law should be run out of office, addressing the horrid measure needed to come first.
“The people are the fountain and the original of all power” - John Adams.
The people themselves, when necessary can act as a legislature. There is nothing improper about them taking the responsiblity of making laws themselves.
The power to make laws is delegated to legislatures by the people. They have every authority to take it back from them, and instead of having others act in their stead, act themselves.
I’m all for the whole panoply of the early 20th century progressive reforms: the referendum, initiative, and recall.
Passing it means approving the law as the worthless bastards in Olympia wrote it.
That is true. I was not raising questions about the constitutionality or the legality of the process.
Politically, it seems shortsighted to approve of such a process because it can just as easily (as it most often does) produce opposite outcomes than what conservatives believe in. Oregon assisted suicide? Medical pot in CA?
So, if Congress passes Obamacare and Cap and Tax, tax, tax against the will of the people, you are OK with that?
If the referendum is a duly validated part of the state of Maine’s constitution, then yours or anyone else’s happiness is immaterial. When you say “our system of government wasn’t set up that way”, are you referring to the Maine government (which was set up that way) or the federal (which was not)?
I don’t understand the reticence to use a legitimate tool of redress under the Maine constitution. In this case in particular, the people did not MAKE law, but only PREVENTED it by opposing an act of their legislature they disagreed with.
If you registered your phone number with the “do not call” list, you have done the exact same thing - prevented what you consider a negative act by someone else (calling you unsolicited) by a legal preemptive move (registering your phone number).
If you oppose the legitimate tool called referendum, you must also oppose the legitimate tool called do-not-call.
Of course not. That is why we have the 2010 elections to throw the bums out. I will be donating profusely for many campaigns that will replace DEM representatives and Senators.
Obviously, that elected gov't. was not representative of the people who elected them.
The better is the enemy of good enough. Reasonable people can differ on what is better, and what is good enough. The Referendum gives the people a chance to vote on a single issue, whereas legislatures can support you on issues ABC and be against you on issue D. They thus can benefit from higher levels of noise in their signal...rather like and enemy trying to penetrate our air defense systems while taking advantage of jamming.
Rather nice to be able to reject the jamming and turn back the attack.
Bill of Rights...10th Amendment.
The bastards that wrote this initiative made it so confusing, I swear I still don’t know what’s going on.
You can’t “endorse a process”, but you can condemn a legal method of redress under the state of Maine’s constitution.
Your reasoning on this appears to be oval - not even rising to the level of circular.
Why do you think that overturning one constitutional act (representative enacted law) with another constitutional act (voter referendum) is less than legitimate?
As we have seen countless times, politicians are far more likely to act in their own self interest (in this case, pandering to the homosexuals to get political correctness points) than to act in what is TRULY the will and interests of the people and the state.
Voter referendum is there just in case the politicians don’t follow the will of the people.
Remember, the politicians get their authority from the people, not the other way around.
The referendum method is merely a tool.
The message is the medium. Conservatives must present our opinion in a forthright and convincing manner, no matter whether it be to elect conservative representatives, or to redress issues under a legal mechanism such as the referendum. Decrying this means is akin to forcing Tiger Woods to leave his driver in the bag.
Laws are made all the time by “majority rule” except we use representatives and it is their majority. But we are supposed to have the Constitution to make sure that the majority does not become a tyrannical mob like Reid, Pelosi, and Obama.
In a democracy the people get the government they deserve. A referendum is a check on the legislature and the courts. Here the people of Maine have spoken to their legislature. They have chosen wisely. I'm sure that it will be challenged in the courts.
Maybe the courts will think like you and overturn the will of the people.
Would that make you happy?
Do you have a problem with the right of the state to determine its own laws? Did you know that the original anti-drug laws were enacted by southern Democrats because they wanted new ways to put blacks in prison to work on their prison plantations? Did you know that law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court? Did you know that FDR threatened to expand the Supreme Court to 15 members so he could pack it with yes men in order to get his unconstitutional laws to pass constitutional muster?
If it was up to me, I would eliminate about 98% of the federal power because it is unconstitutional anyway.
While I am glad the Mainers repealed single sex marriage, there voice was loud and clear on the other ballot iniatives. They voted with a 70% majority to maintain an onerous annual car registration fee of hundreds of dollars. Also, 60 percent of Mainers trusted the legislature to raise taxes without a confirmatory referendum on another iniative. The overall lesson is while they may not walk in lockstep with the balding, ponytailed, state lawmakers on social issues, they still love their entitlements.
Well bugger me!
The first anti-drug law was in SF related to opium and it was biased against the Chinese, not the Blacks. By the 30's, ALL states had anti-marijuana laws.
The law has been repealed— by the voters. Maybe next year the perps will lose their jobs. But the referendum is in place so that the People, the ultimate BOSS, can undo the mischief of their hirelings.
Conversely, I can't say that I'd not endorse a process just because it might, at some point in the future, produce a disfavourable outcome.
Referenda exist as an outlet for the expression of the will of the ultimate earthly source of sovereignty in a representative system - the people.
If the people pass a law you don't like, then you can either lump it, try to change peoples' minds, or move somewhere else. Referenda are a quite legitimate expression of the rights of the people of the States under the 10th amendment.
By 1914, the Harrison Act was passed, which was the beginnings of the War on Some Drugs at the Federal level, for the reason of controlling the minorities and they were not shy about saying so...
Each drug was associated with a minority group, then demonized by saying that its usage would induce white women to have sex with the men from that group. It was really vile. Our current WoSD is less OBVIOUSLY biased, but is just as evil.
Bad example because Tiger is good enough to win without his driver, but I get your point.
By 1914 most of the states had laws against cocaine, heroin, opium, etc and 1 in 400 US citizens were addicts.
Most of the addicts were women that were 'prescribed drugs to relieve 'women's' problems.
How often does one legislature redo a previous ones laws. In a case like this, ten years down the road, a social change would be engraved in stone. No one would touch it.
As with both your points, my question is the same: Where is government granted any authority to ban/regulate/proscribe the use of drugs or anything else for that matter? I have YET to find it in the Constitution. As for states, the only authority I can figure out is where municipalities and counties might get by with regulating PUBLIC BEHAVIORS while under the influence, but nothing more. Certainly no banning/proscribing/etc. etc.
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