It is a extremely convenient act for whoever is in power.
We don't need a referendum, we just need to choose representation that wants the same things we want. (Alternate formation: Americans do not want these things as much as some of us think they do.)
If you look at how weed was legalized, it required a referendum in many (most?) states because no representative wants to be the guy that has his face plastered everywhere when some kid dies after he smokes some legal weed and smashes into a pole, even if most his constituents wanted the policy.
Representatives generally have to be risk averse to get to the point they can even represent people on issues. This means they are extremely reluctant to vote for anything that might come back to bite them somehow, even if it is popular.
>Alternate formation: Americans do not want these things as much as some of us think they do
There is extremely overwhelming evidence that a supermajority of americans have wanted medical marijuana to be federally legal for many years. And overwhelming evidence the representatives have not been successfully bringing that forward.
The catch is that when voters vote at all levels, they express by their choices that e.g. marijuana legalization is not a high priority. So voters might well vote to legalize if given that standalone choice, but it's not obvious to me that it's a good idea to insulate representatives from their inaction.
> no representative wants to be the guy
So on this, a number of states arrived at some level of legalization exactly this way. Legalization laws were signed by governors as diverse politically as Kay Ivey in Alabama and Tim Walz in Minnesota.
There's no statutory reason that voters in e.g. South Carolina cannot choose representation as amenable to legalization as Beshear in Kentucky or Reeves in Mississippi. Referenda also are subject to faithful implementation by representatives, so attempting to side-step the choice of representatives is not necessarily going to be fruitful.
It only required a referendum in some states because most US states are controlled by Republican governors and legislatures who openly defy what their own constituents want without fear of being voted out, because republicans vote republican no matter what. Republican voters will say "I want to legalize weed", their elected representative spouts literal DARE propaganda about weed that republican voters KNOW is false since they literally smoke weed (illegally, how about that), but they STILL re-elect those politicians, because it's more important to not have a democrat in office than to actually get what you democratically voted for.
Here in Maine, we passed a referendum to legalize weed. It passed. Lepage spent the next 4 years of his Governor term refusing to implement it, entirely. Like he just criminally defied the will of the public. As soon as Mills took office, the state built up a framework for recreational weed and IMO it's pretty good compared to other states, which is probably why we have literal Chinese gangs growing illegal weed all over the state :/
You see the same thing in every Republican state that allows citizen referendums. The public passes a referendum, and the republican politicians of the state just utterly defy it, and they do not get voted out
Democrat politicians respect citizen referendums, even when they are stupid and against democrat policies, like in California where Uber is not an employer because that's how the people voted.
LOL what, apparently you forgot about Proposition 187, which California voters voted "yes" on, got tied up in the courts, and then when a Democrat governor came into power he let the appeals die.
Proposition 8: voters voted to ban gay marriage, courts said "nah we're not going to do that." Judges aren't technically politicians but that line is a little blurry at times.
The good news is when your candidate loses you don't find out the evil they really do and you can say it is not your fault. The bad news is you don't find out what is bad about the things you think are good.
Unless the Sanders Administration had a very favorable or majority Democrat Congress aligned with his progressive wing, many proposals would be outright blocked or heavily compromised. Knowing our limitation that everything else has stayed largely the same as history since, this wouldn't be the case. The hypothetical administration's attempts at sweeping reforms, such as healthcare and climate regulation, would very likely be significantly curtailed or overturned by courts or constrained by constitutional limits on separation. The GOP, even though they actively outspend Democrats when in power, obstruct via financial limits each and every Democratic-led effort while crowing about expansion of debt incursion; as such, spending on Bernie's proposed initiatives would raise concerns about deficits, inflation, and taxation. Even with tax increases, there would be pushback from wealthy individuals, corporations, and lobbyists.
Basically, nothing would change in any significant way except, perhaps, the SCOTUS would not be outright overturning DECADES of 'settled law' in favor of an absurd view of the world as it was hundreds of years ago.
This is a feature, and why Trump's second term is so different to his first, or Bidens, or Obamas, or Bush, or Nixon. You'd probably have to go back to FDR for such sweeping changes to the US state.
Trumps first term was overturning norms in behavior, but not overturning the way the entire governing system works, all four estates.
But his support of ratcheting up the Ukraine war disappointed profoundly. That’s not the Bernie I would have voted for.
Sometimes you gotta rip that bandaid off.
Now, that might not have worked but anything might have had a pretty large impact on global/US deaths.
this is the end of celebrity culture at the hands of social media.
monarchies are the central core of celebrity cultism, look at France today; surrounded by the Monarchies and up in flames.
I've worked on privacy regulation. This would not get votes. The unfortunate fact is that the people most passionate about these issues are also tremendously lazy or extremely nihilistic. (Maybe it comes with the territory of not trusting institutions.)
Either way, privacy advocates can rarely muster even a dozen calls to electeds, let alone credibly threaten backing a primary opponent. The reason SOPA/PIPA worked is it animated a group of tech advocates beyond those with ideological opposition to surveillance.
Basically, a good portion of White America are gone cases. You won’t be able to explain to gone cases anything. That’s the reality of America.
I'm not sure that democrats enact/write less laws. If they don't enact (or write) less laws, i cannot see how the aggregate number of laws reduces.
This, apparently, is a "hard" statistical (research) problem, even though i've seen reporting on this exact subject, along the lines of "number of lines in bills written by each party" or similar. but the top 2 are democrats. I think "enacted" is a different metric, but i'm still pretty certain that democrats lead on "enacted" legislation, at least in the last 25 years.
The bad guys will say you only need privacy if you’re guilty and the plebs will lap it up