Word: referenda
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...same-sex marriage has become normalized. The referendum bid threatens to needlessly destabilize this harmonious social atmosphere. Never before has a referendum been proposed in Massachusetts that seeks to dissolve the rights of a minority group that had been previously guaranteed. In fact, the Massachusetts state constitution explicitly prohibits referenda concerning religious organizations for precisely this reason: the correct belief that the rights of minorities should not be fodder for public consumption and political hackery, but for well-reasoned debate in a controlled setting...
...Brussels is deceptive as long as the philosophical and political foundations of the EU are weak. As I leave the Parliament and head home, the location’s allure gradually fades and I wonder whether a truly European politics will ever be possible. In the wake of the referenda, a number of years of stasis seem unavoidable, although thereafter it might be too late for Europe ever to catch up. Brussels may experience business as usual today, but the outlook is troubled...
...isn’t just accuracy that gets lost when voters are deprived of their ability to abstain; when campus-wide referenda and presidential/vice-presidential elections are conducted on the same electronic ballot, a voter who may want to abstain from voting on the question of their student government leadership, but who feels strongly about one or more of the referendum questions, is unable to cast a vote on the latter while declining to participate in the former. It isn’t hard to imagine, for instance, that a given student might feel that the distinction between renewable and exhaustible...
...country down its geographic center, with all of its western provinces voting for Yushchenko and all of its southern and eastern provinces voting for Yanukovich. The potential for civil war has exploded in the past few days, since the legislatures of several eastern provinces have nearly unanimously approved holding referenda on provincial autonomy. Fortunately, both Yanukovich’s and Yushcenko’s supporters in Parliament, as well as President Kuchma, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solona, and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell have all stated their commitment to the unity of Ukraine. We hope that their...
Opening an important series of lectures on democracy and the Constitution, Breyer stressed the importance of what he called “active liberty.” In electing representatives, participating in recalls and referenda and other ways—all part of this concept of “active liberty”—he said citizens help trace “the line of authority of the making of government decisions back to the people...