BALLOT INITIATIVES: Attorney general asks California Supreme Court to hear Prop. 8 controversy
In order to “provide closure and clarity on the ballot measure” Prop 8, California Attorney General Jerry Brown is asking the California Supreme Court “to review the constitutionality of Proposition 8.” Personally, I don’t believe most ballot initiatives are wise, and I’ve argued so here and here, and Prop 8 shouldn’t have been allowed in the first place.
Our founding fathers did not seek direct or pure democratic governance as the United States’s form of government. James Madison in Federalist Paper #10 wrote, “A pure democracy. . .can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. . . .A republic. . .promises the cure for which we are seeking.” In the United States, we employ a republican form of government, which is a representative form of government where the legislative branch is elected to represent the population as opposed to a pure democratic form of government where the people directly vote on the matters. Some folks prefer a more participatory form of government, because our republican form of government has become controversial over the years, since special interests groups and lobbyists can influence it. However, the passage of Prop 8 has shown the same can happen when more participatory forms of government are allowed, and special interest groups did distort the facts at the grassroots level in order to impose their agenda. From the New York Times:
It is not known when the Supreme Court will decide whether to take up the case.
The central argument in the recently filed lawsuits is that Proposition 8 is a significant enough revision to the State Constitution to require approval by the Legislature.
Supporters of the proposition, led by the group Protect Marriage, reject that argument, suggesting in legal papers filed Monday on behalf of five California residents that “when using the initiative process to amend the Constitution, the people exercise their sovereign power of self-government.”
In his filing on Monday, Mr. Brown stopped short of asking the court to stay the ban, saying that to do so could lead to more same-sex marriages, whose legality would then be in question if the court ultimately upheld the measure.
But Mr. Brown reiterated in a news release that he believed that the 18,000 or so same-sex marriages performed in California before the Nov. 4 vote should remain valid.
On the Net:
BALLOT PROPOSALS, are they wise?
PROPOSITION 8: Are ballot initiatives wise?
PROP 8: To protest or not to protest, to litigate or not to litigate
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