America wins...

[OldGreyEagle]

As usual, I got distracted. I am not talking about women and men's voting rights, or Prop 8 themselves per se. I mean, how do "the people" change the culture in which they are living if they find the present culture either too rigid or too lax, either works. How does "the people" change society?

[Beavah]

No, my point was exactly the opposite. If the California Prop 8 is allowed to stand, I see no reason why women wouldn't be able to restrict the "opportunity" for men to vote, if they chose to do so.

 

Yah, of course they can.

 

Get a supermajority of both houses and 3/4 of da state legislatures to agree, it's a done deal.

 

A constitutional change is a constitutional change.

 

Now, some might argue that it should be harder to change state constitutions than it is in California. And it is indeed harder in some states, eh? But that's not the tradition in California. Might be a wise tradition for California, given the tendency of it's legislature to be stupid and it's courts to be into promulgating their own philosophy more than da law.

 

In this case, the nitwits on the California Supreme Court invalidated a law that had been overwhelmingly passed by voter referendum not more than 7 years ago. What did anybody with a brain think was goin' to happen, for cryin' out loud? The voters put their law back in place, but this time put it in the constitution where the nitwits couldn't touch it. Perhaps a better lesson would have been if they also put in place recall provisions for judges at da same time, eh? Then next time the court goes rogue, they can fire 'em in addition to reversing them!

 

B

 

[Lisabob]

Er hey folks, that bit about life, liberty and happiness is to be found in the Declaration and not the Constitution.

 

Back to the topic, there is the notion of a tyranny of the majority. Read what Tocqueville had to say about it in his famous work on US democracy, "Democracy in America." I think that's at the heart of the problem with using referenda to decide complex and controversial social issues.