Government by referendum

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California is once again nearing the end of its fiscal year with a huge budget hole and no hope of a deal to plug it, as its constitution requires. Other American states also have problems, thanks to the struggling economy. But California cannot pass timely budgets even in good years, which is one reason why its credit rating has, in one generation, fallen from one of the best to the absolute worst among the 50 states.



It is tempting to accuse those doing the governing. The legislators, hyperpartisan and usually deadlocked, are a pretty rum bunch. The governor, Jerry Brown, who also led the state between 1975 and 1983, has (like his predecessors) struggled to make the executive branch work.



The main culprit has been direct democracy: recalls, in which Californians fire elected officials in mid-term; referendums, in which they can reject acts of their legislature; and especially initiatives, in which the voters write their own rules.



Since 1978, when Proposition 13 lowered property-tax rates, hundreds of initiatives have been approved on subjects from education to the regulation of chicken coops.



This citizen legislature has caused chaos. Many initiatives have either limited taxes or mandated spending, making it even harder to balance the budget.

Some are so ill-thought-out that they achieve the opposite of their intent: for all its small-government pretensions, Proposition 13 ended up centralizing California’s finances, shifting them from local to state government. This has been a tragedy for California, but it matters far beyond the state’s borders.


Around half of America’s states and an increasing number of countries have direct democracy in some form.



With technology making it ever easier to hold referendums and Western voters ever more angry with their politicians, direct democracy could be on the march.

http://www.economist.com/node/18586520?story_id=18586520&fsrc=rss
 

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perhaps the problem lies more with the law suits the government has filed trying to prevent those things the citizens approved from happening.......
 
You libbies are unbelievable. You only support democracy when it suits your agenda.

On another note, if a balanced-budget amendment is ratified at the Federal level, what will stop politicians from violating it? Obviously it doesn't seem to phase California politicians. The only way for a BBA to be effective is to have a provision which denies politicians re-election if they fail to balance the budget. ALL of them. I bet that would solve the problem very quickly...
 
I'm personally not a fan of direct democracy, and the referendumb and the initiative certainly fall under that category. Of course, I live in WA, where nothing good would ever get done, at all, without those two items. I also oppose the 17th Amendment, and wouldn't mind seeing us return to having the Electors chosen by the state legislatures, rather than responding to the popular will.
 
Referendum democracy has been a failure, and should be repealed. Every voter who approved of proposition 13 should be stripped of citizenship and executed in a timely manner for betraying the American republic.
 
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