 |
"Initiative & Referendum are the best
tools available in a democratic society to protect the integrity
of a representative system and to preserve its responsiveness
to the electorate. Much too often large bureaucracies, professional
politicians and other narrow interests groups become masters
of government using it to their benefit. In twenty-four other
states I&R have proven to be the best defense against these
distortions." |
A 60% Super Majority Requirement is just one of the bad ideas being pushed by those who object to citizens having the Initiative. It would ensure that any Initiative Process was a tool of the Special Interests.
(Arguments compiled by Mike Ford)1. It is kind of goofy that constitutional changes proposed by the legislature (a creation of the people) require only majority approval from the people, but constitutional changes proposed by the people themselves require super majority (60%) approval.
2. A super majority requirement (60%) for constitutional changes gives each "no" vote 1.5 times the importance of each "yes" vote. It permits opponents to block change with only 40.1% of the votes, allowing them to overrule a majority of 59.9%. It violates, in principle, the one man-one vote requirement of the U. S. Constitution.
3. A super majority requirement (60%) for changing the basic law of the people, the constitution, violates the core essential tenet of free government - majority rule.
4. A super majority requirement empowers big money interests to block constitutional changes according to their desire. Well financed special interests can easily buy a 40.1% vote to block changes they don't like.
5. A super majority requirement of 60% would have blocked such amendments as women's suffrage, prohibition repeal and the secret ballot.
6. It is desirable that Constitutional amendment proposals be more difficult than statute initiative proposals. And they are --- they require 50% more signatures.
7. Future generations would be severely impaired in the ability to change the actions of the past in accordance with unforeseeable needs of the future. Essentially, we are telling our children and grandchildren we are better able to determine the role of government in their lives than they will be for their time.
8. A 60% vote requirement will continue to unreasonably empower state courts, making them more like the federal courts who know that federal constitutional change to rectify unreasonable court decisions is virtually impossible to achieve.
9. By the inclusion of a 60% super majority voter approval of constitutional amendments proposed by citizen initiative, this proposal offers to Texans the appearance of a citizen initiative, but keeps government (the legislature and the bureaucracy) in full power to write all the rules. If such a proposal were passed, the peoples ability to limit the power of government would remain as it is, that is:
a. limited to trying to understand why the $140 billion is not more than enough money to run all necessary functions of government,
b. trying to understand what the 1100 new laws were and why Texas needed them,
c. and having no remedy other than to try to vote out of office incumbents who are strategically disbursing the $80
billion in ways most likely to increase their re-election chances.To see what the Founding Fathers said about majority rule, click here. "In conducting thousands of surveys
on almost every conceivable issue for nearly half a century,
I have learned three significant things about our fellow citizens.
1. One is that the judgment of the American people is extraordinarily sound.
2. Another is that the public is almost always ahead of its leaders.
3. The third is that the electorate has become better educated
and more sophisticated politically than ever before."
Dr. George Gallup, August 1978