Ohio voters have approved a constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care. The outcome of Tuesday’s intense, off-year election was the latest blow for abortion opponents.
They’re certainly not bulletproof. It’s obviously been a hot sec at this point, but Proposition 8 in California of all places codified marriage as exclusively being between a man and a woman when it was legalized by the California Supreme Court.
Continuing in California, Proposition 13, which froze property taxes so long as ownership is maintained but allows that frozen rate to be transferred to family, has essentially created a situation where the state is subsidizing homeowners that are already substantially wealthier than the average person while also legally enshrining a class of people who pay much less tax by virtue of inheritable status. The perverse economic effects are rather obvious.
Referendums can be great, but voters are also generally going to be inherently selfish. Local control of zoning and housing policy, just to shit on California one more time, has resulted in a massive housing crisis. There are situations where it’s really important for lawmakers to choose the path that inconveniences everyone a little bit but solves a problem over the path where no individual is directly inconvenienced while the root problem only gets much worse. In Game Theory terms, referendums are very bad at handling prisoner’s dilemma style situations, since voters will generally pursue their own immediate interests.
They’re certainly not bulletproof. It’s obviously been a hot sec at this point, but Proposition 8 in California of all places codified marriage as exclusively being between a man and a woman when it was legalized by the California Supreme Court.
Continuing in California, Proposition 13, which froze property taxes so long as ownership is maintained but allows that frozen rate to be transferred to family, has essentially created a situation where the state is subsidizing homeowners that are already substantially wealthier than the average person while also legally enshrining a class of people who pay much less tax by virtue of inheritable status. The perverse economic effects are rather obvious.
Referendums can be great, but voters are also generally going to be inherently selfish. Local control of zoning and housing policy, just to shit on California one more time, has resulted in a massive housing crisis. There are situations where it’s really important for lawmakers to choose the path that inconveniences everyone a little bit but solves a problem over the path where no individual is directly inconvenienced while the root problem only gets much worse. In Game Theory terms, referendums are very bad at handling prisoner’s dilemma style situations, since voters will generally pursue their own immediate interests.