Word: california
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...this election season heats up, California's propositions, this time on term limits for U.S. Representatives and bilingual education, are again in the news. Yet despite all this seeming success, these chances for Californians to directly affect state law and national attitudes at the ballot box, I am pessimistic about the current state of propositions and urge the need for all those who follow the propositions to consider the need for their reform. Before taking sides on the propositions, political analysts and Californians like me should reflect on how the initiative system has been abused and needs our help...
...think that lobbying groups feel they can convince more of the populace than the state representatives to get their law passed, but this is precisely what has happened. The recent advertising boom in proposition politics can be traced to the huge infusion of money from outside groups, who use California as a battleground for their national concerns. Tobacco giants and conservative think tanks as well as drug-legalization activists have acted around spending limits and disclosure laws to affect the outcome. National media attention has often only exacerbated the problem, presenting a clip of a rally or debate and never...
...vague on what constitutes medical use. Similarly, Prop. 209, as well as the earlier Prop 187, have been delayed in their implementation due to numerous pending state and federal suits challenging the measures on civil-rights grounds. These bills are only the most prominent examples of the problem: California's propositions cannot be effective if they are not are tied up in court...
...challenged in court, but recent initiatives have increasingly been subjected to that fate. One important reason is that initiatives have become vague and have been worded more and more deceptively. Lobbyists now put their dream wording onto these bills. Though this freedom might have once supported direct democratic action, California now decides major issues based on poorly worded questions, where the answer may lay outside the boundaries of a simple...
...position on any specific initiative in order to plead for the process: help save this important institution. This year, don't cheer the heavily financed and poorly conceived proposals as models for national reform; first they need to be responsible pieces of legislation and not just whim writ large. California voters should have enough sense to turn down these types of proposals for more serious methods to govern their state--the officials in Sacramento should be called upon to do more for their constituencies. As this election season heats up and the bold positions of the Californian propositions again make...