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.
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.