Direct Democracy? Irrational legislation

In California, we believe deeply in democratic principle, yet it is almost as if we don't understand the founders message hidden inside of representative democracy. The ballot box system has cost us in ways that are not and cannot be understood at the time we propose the initiatives, mostly because we cannot even begin to perceive the variables involved in the interpretation of the law in the future. In its roots, direct ballot measure initiatives had the best intentions and for many years, ranging in type from regulating things considered social vice such as prize fighting to issuing bonds for the construction of UC berkeley. In the sixties it was used for civil rights and environmental reform, and most famously for proposition 13 which create not one but two severe problems for California. The first was too create property tax cap, which is great in itself because it allows grandma to stay in her home, however it also allows businesses, no matter how large their real estate empire, to pay limited taxes, Disneyland is a great example of this. Secondly it created the most binding language on a legislature when deciding on any fiscal policy, a super majority must decide to get on board, and as we have seen we can barely get together a normal majority to keep our state solvent. What these policies have done to our state were not thought of when instituted, how could one think that at a time when people were unable to keep up with their taxes due to unprecedented growth in California. When placed on the ballot the true nature of an initiative is often lost to passionate arguments that are not well founded in factual base, in proposition 13 for instance, language was inserted to require 2/3 vote, but peopel were so busy shouting about property tax and myopity they forgot to take in the long term effects of such language, or how it could be used against democratic progression. Since prop 13 we have seen a myriad of of other intiative and many of them have come from special interest groups pushing agenda in their benefit and selling it to the people as something in their best interest, the prisons for example were a major proponent in 3 strikes, well if we look at our prison system overcrowding now, maybe that prop wasn't such a good idea. The last such initiative was done by our governor, an emergency vote to decide that his budget reform ideas were the best, we decided they weren't, but why should he be able to have the power to go outside our elected officials and propse things that were already decided were a bad idea through our elected representatives. The ballot initiative was a good idea, the originator thought that people were smart and had the power to govern themselves, what I think he missed as is the problem with most of these reforms is how the power would be wielded. Because of this system our state is in dire straights, in july we were almost insolvent and we are moving toward a projected 8 billion dollar shortfall. The prop system is not being used as it was meant to, this is just one area of our legislative process that must be changed, because there is no way that the general public can have the necessary knowledge or foresight to make sound decisions.