I’m not a huge fan of citizen-based legal initiatives. I think there’s a place for them, but they tend to be poorly written and too easily rushed through bits of demogoguery by special interests (while the latter can be said for legislative bills, at least those schmucks will have to face reelection at some point; nobody ever seems to get angsty over some ballot proposal they voted for six years ago).
Colorado, in particular, has a very low threshold for getting measures on the ballot — you only need as many signatories on a petition as there were 5% of the folk who last voted for Secretary of State (always a terribly popular office to vote for, of course), which means about 68,000 names right now, statewide.
All of which plays into this tale of Duelling Gay Marriage Initiatives, hurtling to a ballot box near you (or, at least, near me) this fall:
- House Bill 1344, the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Responsibilities Act, passed by the state legislature for approval by the voters. It would create a domestic partnership law, allowing gay partners to handle each other’s medical decisions, adopt each other’s children, etc.
- A grass-roots initiative to invalidate 1344 (whether it passes or not) by amending the state constitution to bar anything “similar to marriage” for gays.
- A grass-roots initiative to get around the other grass-roots initiative to declare by constitutional fiat that, no, 1344 isn’t really similar to marriage. So even if both the previous bills passed, if this one passed then 1344 would be okay. Maybe.
- Yet another grass-roots initiative to put a gay marriage ban into the constitution.
*sigh* Expect plenty of spleen-venting here viz #2 and #4 (and the anti-#1 folks), depending on who gets gets things on the ballot. For the moment, I only have so much spleen to go around, so I only want to use it on issues that come to pass …
We don’t have similar ballot initiatives in Canada, but we do occasionally have talk of implementing citizen-driven referenda and plebiscites.
The idea never goes very far. Here’s one anecdote that may explain why:
About seven years ago in Canada, Stockwell Day, the leader of the Canadian Alliance Party (the forerunner to the current Conservative government) put forward a notion of popular referenda on topical issues. Citizens could petition the government to hold a referendum on any topic, and the number of signatures required on a petition was quite low.
Rick Mercer, on the of the hosts of the current-affairs comedy show, This Hour Has 22 Minutes (that title is a Canadian TV in-joke)asked his viewers to go online and sign a petition for just such a referendum.
The goal of the referendum: To force Stockwell Day to change his first name to “Doris.”
The results: Mercer obtained enough signatures to force the referendum (had that law been in force) by the end of the week; Stockwell Day was forced out of the Canadian Alliance due to a series of public-relations gaffes and party politics; and the Canadian Alliance party itself was dissolved.
Power to the people!
*glee*
I have only seen bootlegs of that show and it made me laugh. I wish that we could get it on DVD down here.
I think there is some value in being able to push such changes through from the populace, as a safety valve against the politicians. But I think it should take a high threshold of petitioners to get in the door.