You could have all the 'national referendums' in the world and it wouldn't matter a whit, becuase that's not one of the mechanisms for amending the Constitution. (Thank God.)
I don't know about you, but to have a Federal Judge call for a 'national referendum' to change the Founding Document comes pretty close to an impeachable offense to me. It's certainly not 'good behavior' in my book.
L
He clearly does know the process since he mentioned it in the piece.
His complaint is that the Supreme Court has been amending the Constitution, which it is not entitled to do, and he would like the public to remind them of that fact. I don't think it is any deeper than that.
What kind of a judge wants to amend the Constitution via the mob. Madison makes it pretty clear in Federalist 10 that pure democracy is a tyrannical form of government and is dangerous to liberty. A short excerpt of Federalist 10 says:
From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.
Anyone else interested in hearing about why the founding fathers didn't use national referendums can read more of this federalist paper on the following link.
http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm