I hate our referendum system.
20% of the time it works great - redistricting reform and electoral reform after all were ballot propositions.
80% of the time it is just a nuisance and proof how direct democracy doesn't work.
I think part of the problem is that everything requires just 50%, and maybe that is no longer appropriate for direct democracy. Some things should require more. For instance, conservatives seem to want to keep throwing up roadblocks to enacting taxes. I think a 2/3rd share of the vote should be required to enact new restrictions on the government's tax-making powers. I mean, I get their concern but the legislature already needs 2/3rd majority to pass taxes. That is more than enough for gods sakes. Requiring voter approval for every new tax / fee on gas/car stuff is patently absurd, and these Norquist worshippers are taking advantage of voter discontent to enact
bad policy. Repeal the gas tax if they want, but new restrictions like this is bound to cause problems in the future. It seems to be that if they think 2/3 majority is OK for the legislature, it should be OK for them to do their restrictions.
2/3rd vote should be required to restrict voting, including any system that returns redistricting power back to partisan lawmakers
This would probably operate better if we could shift initiatives to people enacting policy lawmakers won't, but not using the system to practically govern the state every 2 years. It really does seem like too much policy is getting passed this way, and you have to keep in mind that CA has legislative tampering rules, so the legislature can't modify any of these initiatives after they pass. That's troublesome if there are unforeseen problems later on that require fixes but also voter approval due to the way they were passed.
