The 10/24-weekend episode of The McLaughlin Group included a discussion on the possibility of having the ability to have a nationwide referendum - not on anything in particular, but just the idea of being able to pass laws that way, the way they can be done at state level. USA is one of few countries that has no provision whatsoever for allowing for a nationwide popular vote - Australia, for example, requires a majority vote of the people (as well as a majority vote in each of at least 4 of the 6 states) in order to amend its Constitution. I think the closest the USA has to it is the current attempt to get states with at least 270 electoral votes to pass a “all of our electoral votes go to the candidate with the most popular votes nationwide” law so that whoever wins the popular vote is elected President automatically.
Is this a “good thing”, or would it lead to “majority tyranny”? What stops the poorest 55% of the people from raising taxes on the richest 45%? What about the poorest 99% raising taxes on the richest 1%? For that matter, what stops people in each state from doing that now? Is the difference between “large companies will just move to another state - refresh my memory; what’s 15% of zero?” and “large companies will just move to another country…I think” that significant?
Law is best when developed slowly and by, well, trial and error. The more people a law covers, the more slowly it should be developed.
A national referendum - or the nightmare scenario, a Constitutional Convention - would have the potential to destroy the US as we know it, no hyperbole intended. You don’t hand the monkeys hammers to bash at the foundations.
I assume it would have been repealed subsequently, and, in fact, a law banning discrimination against a married couple because both persons are the same sex would be the law.
Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t meant to amend the Constitution - just pass laws the way Congress and the President currently does. Maybe - maybe - a provision for amending the constitution similar to Australia’s, but with a stricter standard (say, 75% of the popular vote, and a majority vote in 38 or more states) could be added, and I think some states do have laws where a “vote of the people” has the force of the state legislature, but I don’t know if those would pass constitutional muster when it came to something like ratifying a constitutional amendment.
Good God - NO. The U.S. is a republic, not a direct democracy, and has been blessedly free of these stupid things.
Referendums are one of those European/Canadian practices that sound good, especially in countries where people don’t directly vote for their leader, but only have the effect of firing up the most mentally-unstable people on both sides who see the chance to short-circuit the political process to their own advantage. There’s nothing worse than hearing 2 solid years of media obsession over the details of some upcoming referendum that threatens to drastically change the country in one fell swoop. In Canada, the infamous Charlottetown Accord pretty much laid the groundwork for Quebec separatists almost breaking up the country.
Referenda make timing immensely important. If one side thinks public opinion is shifting away, they can strike the iron while hot *now *and cement what they want before it’s too late.
I could see supporting a national referendum system, but not for constitutional amendments. Regular statutes only, and only for those statutes that affect every person so intimately that the issue really should go to the people instead of politicians. The health care law should have gone to a national referendum, for example. The Swiss recently just rejected single payer, so I’d say the system works great.
Questions of civil rights should not be up to majority rules - slavery should be illegal whether 1% or 99% of the population supports it. Other questions of how the government operates could be decided by referendum, but as That Don Guy says you’d want to require more than a 50% majority to change the law this way, so that the system has a bit of inertia behind it. Having the law flip-flop every time support changes from 50%-1 to 50%+1 or back isn’t a good thing, but if 20% of the population change their mind and your 60%+1 support for a new law turns into 60%+1 support to repeal the law, that’s a more reasonable basis to roll it back.
I think Heinlein once remarked that, with some time and effort, you can convince a legislature that 2+2 can not not equal 5, but that a referendum is immune to all such pursuasion.
Heinlein didn’t live in the age of Fox News. In this day and age, I’m all but convinced that not only could you get the public to vote that 2 + 2 = 5, but that 4 never existed and 7 should be executed because it ate 9.
I also would worry about even greater partisanship than we have now. Closely debated issues in the legislative process can still produce compromise or passing of pieces that all can support. Once a referendum was on the ballot it would ride exactly the way it was. Congress critters would have no reason to stick their necks out and legislate since pending referendums would trump any work they’d do along the way. They’d be reduced to cheerleaders on the big issues that would be as binary as a football game. There’s no give and take once the referendum is o the ballot. We’d just have something else to argue about for 6 months to a year. Referendums - great for politcal blogs and “news” opinion panels but not so effective for actual good governance.
If laws were up to a referendum, you would probably end up with laws requiring a balanced budget and reduced taxes and increased spending.
Actual law makers have to figure out how thing are actually going to be implemented and so will generally (current debt ceiling fighters not withstanding) vote for things that are at least somewhat feasible. The public can vote for the mathematically impossible without batting an eye.
Referenda work fine when there’s a sufficient bar for them to pass. Some things can only be fixed from outside of the system, and referenda are the only practical way to do them. But you need a stronger requirement than 50%+1, or else the whole political system goes unstable.
Oops! The double negative got me. I misread BrotherCadfael’s post to indicate that unlike the population as a whole, the legislature can be taught falsehoods.
So, the sentence means: “with some time and effort, you can convince a legislature that 2+2 must equal 5, but that a referendum is immune to all such pursuasion.”
