In November, citizens around the U.S. said they wanted minimum-wage hikes, higher taxes, and criminal-justice reform. Now their elected officials are trying to roll those changes back.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/state-legislatures-overturn-ballot-initiatives/519591/Other recent incidences not mentioned:
1. Massachussetts delayed marijuana legalization's implementation date, which sounds innocent enough except that state officials were heavily against it and this is merely an attempt to slow it down and screw with something the voters themselves approved
2. After Florida legalized medical marijuana last year, draft rules for the program showed up in the legislature that effectivelly banned any semblance of medical marijuana by prohibiting smoking it, eating it and allowed vaping it only for terminally ill patients. This left only "oils,"
which FL already allowed before. They are trying to nullify what the voters approved, and because of Morgan's sloppy ballot language, it might be possible.
3. IIRC, Rick Scott also tried to ignore the requirement that Florida put aside a lot more money for land conservation - something that was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2014 (70%+)
In terms of making it harder to get initiatives done:
1. Michigan last year increased the signature requirements for initiatives, probably in response to attempts to legalize marijuana
2. Florida proposed increasing the initiated amendment process from 60% required approval to 67%, noting that it was originally 50% up until 2005 or 2006, where the legislature had it raised. They are only trying to make it harder to approve initiatives again because voters are passing things lawmakers don't like, ignoring that their own voters disagree.
3. Corporate interests recently got an initiative passed in Colorado that now makes initiated state constitutional amendment require at least 5% signatures from each county, making it much more expensive to pass. IIRC, this was done to blunt future fracking restrictions from being embedded in the state constitution.
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The list goes on. I must admit, besides how frustrating these actions can be, it is funny to listen to lawmakers try and tell people how initiatives the voters themselves approved, often by huge margins, are actually
bad and need to be repealed, as if the voters can't be trusted to make decisions. Look at Arizona - where those lawmakers, CLEARLY with good intentions, are offering up all sorts of extremely weak excuses why it should be harder for citizens to pass initiatives and/or easier for lawmakers to overrule them. Obviously these politicians know better!
Amazing how shameless politicians can be.
