4 ms·

We need more referendums in the US. It would nice to see the people rebuke the far left and right more often.

ISL 5y ago
One might want to study the impacts of initiative voting in the western US. There are times when bypassing the legislative process is perhaps essential (term-limits for legislators?), but mostly it bypasses the compromises often made in representative democracies. Initiatives can impose new law without handling externalities well. It is possible to vote for "no new taxes" and "properly fund schools!" without balancing the tension between the two. It is my feeling that initiatives are good, at least in theory, but the requirement for passage ought to be greater than 50%.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  Note that the Swiss constitution was inspired by California’s, and improved on its broken referendum model in several ways.
  - ratsforhorses 5y ago
    Curious, you have a source ? from the wiki "with a constitution promulgated on 12 September 1848. This constitution provided for the cantons' sovereignty, as long as this did not impinge on the Federal Constitution. The creation of a bicameral assembly was consciously inspired by the United States Constitution, the National Council and Council of States corresponding to the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively "
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      We replaced it in 1999 [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Constitution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Constitution
      - ratsforhorses 5y ago
        Sorry for nitpicking but where does it say California?
nradov 5y ago
California and some other US states have referendums (ballot propositions). Since the US is a federal republic it would be impossible to have national level referendums without sweeping changes to the Constitution.
- hackeraccount 5y ago
  Why? There's nothing in the Constitution that forbids referendums. I'd imagine it'd be tricky for the current Congress to try and bind the hands of a future congress i.e. The current Congress creates a referendum that compels the next Congress to pass a certain bill and the President to sign it. There's no reason the current Congress couldn't pass a bill and the President sign it into law that says the current Congress will act in accordance with the result of referendum. The congress could even pass the enabling of the referendum and the enabling of the result of the referendum without the consent of the President - if they have the votes to override the President's veto. It'd be odd to be sure but I don't see why they can't do it.
  - nathanaldensr 5y ago
    US Congress doesn't "act" the way you're implying. The US Congress can only write legislation and that legislation must abide by the US Constitution (it often doesn't, especially nowadays). The President can sign whatever they want to, but unless it's a Constitutional authority, the states will give them the middle finger. Also, don't underestimate the demonstrated willingness of county sheriffs to ignore unconstitutional laws.
usrusr 5y ago
Initial gut reaction is "but would they?". But you might be right, it could be a place for positions outside the two-party polarization to thrive. My personal experience however (very limited, it's based on a single referendum) suggests that the opposite might happen: back when the public smoking bans happened my local legislation was iterating through some moderately extreme approaches until eventually closing in on some rather reasonable compromise. But because the smoking fronts ran pretty much orthogonal to the usual party alignments they feared backlash from their followers and ducked out, handing over responsibility to a referendum. In this referendum, two groups were providing options, and it should come to no one's surprise that those groups where from the very far ends of the spectrum. It was basically a vote between two evils of you happened to be even the tiniest bit moderate. The vote was incredibly close, which means that both sides were quite successful at pushing their agenda: if your goal is on an extreme end, you'd want to compromise exactly as much as you need to reach 50%+1, and not the tiniest bit more.
michaelmrose 5y ago
What far left or progressives are pretty moderate.
tester89 5y ago
To be clear, this law was supported by all parties except the far right party (UDC/SVP) in Switzerland.
rsj_hn 5y ago
The problem with referenda is they are effective as breaks on an out of touch legislature rather than problem solving tools in and of themselves. In a democracy you have to horse trade. You have to compromise. If 51% want X and 49% want not X, then you don't implement X, you implement 51% of X, or alternately you give the opponents something else so everyone walks away a little happy and a little unhappy. The idea of total victory as a result of getting 51% jeapordizes the republic as a whole -- that's how you get secession and create chaos, by locking people out entirely instead of giving them some of what they want and some of what they don't want. Referenda aren't able to do this. They aren't able to put people into a room and say "OK, we will put a bridge here and to gain your support we'll move the library over there". That type of consensus gathering process is critical to governing, which is why long lasting forms of government require closer to 60% or even more, e.g. they add various hoops and checks and balances to prevent the 51% from forcing their way and excluding the 49%. These anti-democratic measures are required for democracy to work. This is similar to leading a team. If you have 10 devs and 6 are strongly for something and 4 are strongly against, only the bad manager chooses to steamroll over the 4. The good manager will find some alternate compromise to get most of those 4 onboard, because you don't want to lose a large chunk of your team and need a broader consensus than just 50% +1.

ISL 5y ago

One might want to study the impacts of initiative voting in the western US. There are times when bypassing the legislative process is perhaps essential (term-limits for legislators?), but mostly it bypasses the compromises often made in representative democracies. Initiatives can impose new law without handling externalities well. It is possible to vote for "no new taxes" and "properly fund schools!" without balancing the tension between the two. It is my feeling that initiatives are good, at least in theory, but the requirement for passage ought to be greater than 50%.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
Note that the Swiss constitution was inspired by California’s, and improved on its broken referendum model in several ways.
- ratsforhorses 5y ago
  Curious, you have a source ? from the wiki "with a constitution promulgated on 12 September 1848. This constitution provided for the cantons' sovereignty, as long as this did not impinge on the Federal Constitution. The creation of a bicameral assembly was consciously inspired by the United States Constitution, the National Council and Council of States corresponding to the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively "
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    We replaced it in 1999 [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Constitution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Constitution
    - ratsforhorses 5y ago
      Sorry for nitpicking but where does it say California?

nradov 5y ago

California and some other US states have referendums (ballot propositions). Since the US is a federal republic it would be impossible to have national level referendums without sweeping changes to the Constitution.

hackeraccount 5y ago
Why? There's nothing in the Constitution that forbids referendums. I'd imagine it'd be tricky for the current Congress to try and bind the hands of a future congress i.e. The current Congress creates a referendum that compels the next Congress to pass a certain bill and the President to sign it. There's no reason the current Congress couldn't pass a bill and the President sign it into law that says the current Congress will act in accordance with the result of referendum. The congress could even pass the enabling of the referendum and the enabling of the result of the referendum without the consent of the President - if they have the votes to override the President's veto. It'd be odd to be sure but I don't see why they can't do it.
- nathanaldensr 5y ago
  US Congress doesn't "act" the way you're implying. The US Congress can only write legislation and that legislation must abide by the US Constitution (it often doesn't, especially nowadays). The President can sign whatever they want to, but unless it's a Constitutional authority, the states will give them the middle finger. Also, don't underestimate the demonstrated willingness of county sheriffs to ignore unconstitutional laws.

usrusr 5y ago

Initial gut reaction is "but would they?". But you might be right, it could be a place for positions outside the two-party polarization to thrive. My personal experience however (very limited, it's based on a single referendum) suggests that the opposite might happen: back when the public smoking bans happened my local legislation was iterating through some moderately extreme approaches until eventually closing in on some rather reasonable compromise. But because the smoking fronts ran pretty much orthogonal to the usual party alignments they feared backlash from their followers and ducked out, handing over responsibility to a referendum. In this referendum, two groups were providing options, and it should come to no one's surprise that those groups where from the very far ends of the spectrum. It was basically a vote between two evils of you happened to be even the tiniest bit moderate. The vote was incredibly close, which means that both sides were quite successful at pushing their agenda: if your goal is on an extreme end, you'd want to compromise exactly as much as you need to reach 50%+1, and not the tiniest bit more.

michaelmrose 5y ago

What far left or progressives are pretty moderate.

tester89 5y ago

To be clear, this law was supported by all parties except the far right party (UDC/SVP) in Switzerland.

rsj_hn 5y ago

The problem with referenda is they are effective as breaks on an out of touch legislature rather than problem solving tools in and of themselves. In a democracy you have to horse trade. You have to compromise. If 51% want X and 49% want not X, then you don't implement X, you implement 51% of X, or alternately you give the opponents something else so everyone walks away a little happy and a little unhappy. The idea of total victory as a result of getting 51% jeapordizes the republic as a whole -- that's how you get secession and create chaos, by locking people out entirely instead of giving them some of what they want and some of what they don't want. Referenda aren't able to do this. They aren't able to put people into a room and say "OK, we will put a bridge here and to gain your support we'll move the library over there". That type of consensus gathering process is critical to governing, which is why long lasting forms of government require closer to 60% or even more, e.g. they add various hoops and checks and balances to prevent the 51% from forcing their way and excluding the 49%. These anti-democratic measures are required for democracy to work. This is similar to leading a team. If you have 10 devs and 6 are strongly for something and 4 are strongly against, only the bad manager chooses to steamroll over the 4. The good manager will find some alternate compromise to get most of those 4 onboard, because you don't want to lose a large chunk of your team and need a broader consensus than just 50% +1.