Public education: is it too late?

[iris lilies]

Iris Lily, are your amendments similar to our initiatives or California's propositions? Because I find that sometimes the best ideas (if not the best-crafted laws) come up from the bottom, and I vote for them quite often. I had to laugh when our legislature passed a same-sex marriage law, and fundamentalists got all exercised about it and drafted an initiative to overturn it. Something like "same sex marriage, yea or nay? The joke was on them when the yeas won handily. I'm glad they advanced an initiative though, because it made the law that much more meaningful. And one of these days I'm going to take advantage of our marijuana initiative, just for fun.

Ideas are a dime a dozen.

Do you honestly think that politicians in our state legislature have never entertained the concepts in the amendments, either pro or con? The amendments are a bad way to legislate.

If I'm going to do all of the work as a citizen (pass the legislation at the ballot box as amendment) then what are those clowns doing in the legislature?

[iris lilies]

...What I find in AZ, another initiative state, is that the state's legislators craft an initiative for the voters because they themselves are too chickens*!t to make the hard choices that need to be made.... .

Exactly.

Again, why should I do their work for them?

[ApatheticNoMore]

The citizens judgements on initiatives are usually pretty sound (I mean in California over time, a trend I've noticed - this is not a comment about this Nov nationwide). There are exceptions, yes the glaring ones. And there are those I merely disagree with. But the judgement making seems much better on average than our so called "representatives" utterly corrupt as they are. Big money sometimes sways the initiative vote? Sometimes, it is the danger there, but also massively funded measures also fail when people see through them. That's what I mean the decision making is more often good than bad. Meanwhile politicians are always and at every point for sale.

[JaneV2.0]

Apparently legislators are too cowardly to pass pro-marijuana legislation--and other controversial laws--so I'm happy we have an alternative method to get things done. It is a government of the people, after all.

[Alan]

Apparently legislators are too cowardly to pass pro-marijuana legislation--and other controversial laws--so I'm happy we have an alternative method to get things done. It is a government of the people, after all.

When you remove legislation from the picture and relegate such things to the judiciary (or the executive for that matter), is the government really of the people?

[LDAHL]

When you remove legislation from the picture and relegate such things to the judiciary (or the executive for that matter), is the government really of the people?

Exactly. I never understood the thinking that measured government's value in terms of "productivity", as if it were some sort of factory for imposing new rules, curtailing obsolete liberties, redistributing property, and generally fine-tuning society in conformity with the latest fashion.

I think the true genius of those dead white slave-holding males who drafted the constitution was in a superior understanding of history and human nature. The last thing they wanted was for government to be an efficient tool for any group or individual, even a clear majority, to impose new rules. Anyone wanting to create new obligations for his fellows needs to run a gauntlet of checks and balances before he can get his way. I can see how that would be frustrating to zealots or demagogues or wannabe autarchs or credentialed experts looking to save us from ourselves. I just happen to think that's a better way to run a country.