I agree with you generally. But even here in CA, there are often faint pulses of common sense from our voters on referenda. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that we’ll reject the billionaires tax on the November ballot
But not always. A few years back the Legislature voted a steep hike in the gas tax. A repeal qualified for the ballot. The other side rolled out ads financed by the public employee unions with teachers, cops and firefighters saying how repeal would gut their financing. It was one occasion on which the idiot voters fell for it and failed to pass the repeal
When I lived in California and was a LEO, I tried to tell people that it was a scam; they would not cut police and fire. Darn few listened. I always voted against the tax hikes.