The problem with binding referenda

For advocates of binding referenda, consider this story from The Atlantic:

California has always done democracy a bit differently than most other states. Every other year, voters in the Golden State cast ballots not just for people to represent them, but for many of the actual laws that govern them. It's not quite the ancient Athenian model of citizens gathering on a hill to make decisions, but it's a version of direct democracy deeply-embedded in California's political culture. Over the years, voters have answered for themselves weighty questions of taxation, same-sex marriage, election laws, and the legalization of marijuana, among many others.

Yet that system is now facing something of a threat from an attorney named Matthew McLaughlin, who wants to use the ballot initiative to authorize the mass murder of and lesbians. He has formally proposed the Sodomite Suppression Act, which refers to homosexuality as “a monstrous ” and an “abominable crime against nature.” It would ban communicating messages of tolerance to minors; bar gays and lesbians, or anyone who voices acceptance, from holding government jobs or public office; and authorize mass murder

His specific proposition:

the People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method.

I suspect he is deeply repressed. At a minimum he is deeply fucked up.

The fear isn't that McLaughlin's proposal would ever pass—he is highly unlikely to secure anywhere close to the 365,880 signatures needed merely to get the referendum on next year's ballot, much less to secure a majority at the polls. And the courts would immediately throw out the law, as they have with a number of less extreme measures that Californians have approved. But the mere possibility that McLaughlin could get formal clearance from state officials to begin collecting signatures for a genocidal proposition is raising questions about California's permissive ballot initiative system.

The NZ Act doesn't seem to have any prohibitions on questions, so presumably someone here could also submit a proposed question for approval, and then gather signatures for it.

Overall I much prefer representative democracy.

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