CA Supreme Court Chief Justice joins another Justice in criticizing state ballot initiative system

[alp227]

On Tuesday, the San Francisco Chronicle published an interview with California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno. Moreno said:

It's of great concern to me that certain basic rights, such as equal protection, the right to privacy and other fundamental rights, can be subject to change by simple majority vote. <...> Majority rule is nice in concept, but I think there has to be some kind of restraint on that to fulfill the larger purpose of our democracy.

Moreno said further about Proposition 8:

Any group of special interests, liberal or conservative, can raise money and get an initiative on the ballot, and can word it in a way that seems neutral or innocuous.

Through the campaign, the voters can be misinformed. <...> The process evades review and fact-finding by legislative committees and experts. (Initiatives) are often poorly worded and contradictory. It can be difficult for a court to interpret the voters' intent.

Yesterday, Chief Justice Ronald George was the keynote speaker on a convention about state constitutions at Stanford Law School:

]div class="excerpt"]While nearly half the states allow voters to enact laws, "nowhere is the practice of government by voter initiative as extreme as it is in California," the state Supreme Court's leader said in a keynote speech of a Stanford Law School conference on state constitutions.

The state and its lawmakers "have been placed in a fiscal straitjacket" by a requirement of a two-thirds legislative vote to raise taxes, imposed by Proposition 13 in 1978, George said. He said other ballot measures further tie legislators' hands by reserving specified portions of state spending for public transportation and education.

Initiatives, often funded by special interests who pay signature-gatherers, "have rendered our state government dysfunctional, at least in times of severe economic decline," George said.

[pinto]

1. They are both right on. Moreno on Prop 8 and George on Prop 13.

And both on how the initiative process has gotten way out of hand here.

:thumbsup:

[Wizard777]

2. I disagree. There is a fundamental flaw in his logic.

Rights are provided by constitutional amendments. Not laws. The those rights cannot be changed or altered by laws. In fact conflicting laws become void. If the judge does not have a firm grasp on this elementary concept. He has no place on any supreme court bench. This just another judiciary attack upon the rights of the people. In this case it's the right to self determination and self rule.

[Garbo 2004]

3. Prop 8 was a constitutional amendment to take away right of gays to marry

after court had decided that gays had right to marry under the existing constitution. So it is an instance of majority vote taking away a civil right by amending the state constitution.

[apocalypsehow]

4. But what is "the larger purpose of our democracy"? And who gets to decide that?

Therein lies the rub.