Speaking as a California resident, who has to deal with the remainders of the fashion for direct democracy a hundred years ago, I think this is mostly a bad ide

Speaking as a California resident, who has to deal with the remainders of the fashion for direct democracy a hundred years ago, I think this is mostly a bad idea. One, people enact policies, so we still have to choose leaders. Two, rule-by-ballot-prop is a messy business, with many dubious propositions making it to the ballot not because they're particularly good, but because people with money can pay to make it happen. And three, it depends upon people putting a lot of time into understanding complicated issues. I'm a smart, dutiful person who tries to keep up and who spends many hours every election trying to understand. For me it still often comes down to deciding who to trust. The only advantage I see to it is when it gives politicians cover to do things that they agree with the populace on but don't want to get yelled at about. E.g., legalizing marijuana. Unfortunately, there are also bad examples, like CA Prop 8, which was just trying to put bigotry in the state constitution.