Latest threats to direct democracy in California

Since 1911 Californians have possessed powerful tools to control indolent or corrupt politicians.

The rights of direct democracy — initiative, referendum and recall — are enshrined in the California Constitution for reasons that are just as compelling in 2023 as they were more than a century ago.

But make no mistake, politicians hate direct democracy and view it as a threat to their political power or, at a minimum, as an intrusion on their legislative responsibilities. It is no surprise, then, when legislators introduce proposals to weaken direct democracy and this legislative session is no different.

Last month progressive legislators introduced Senate Constitutional Amendment 1 to gut the recall power. Under current law, voters can recall a state officer by majority vote and, in the same election, elect a successor with a plurality of the vote. In addition, the state Constitution prohibits a public official who is the subject of a recall election from being a candidate for successor.

In a fundamental change to the Constitution, SCA 1 would leave an office vacant in the event of a successful recall until a replacement is elected in a special election or if there is insufficient time to hold a special election, the office would remain vacant for the remainder of the term. This deprives voters of knowing who might replace the officer they are recalling and creates a new concern that a public office could remain unfilled with no one to perform the duties of that office.

In addition, under SCA 1 the rules would be different for a gubernatorial recall. If a governor is removed from office in a recall election, the lieutenant governor becomes governor for the remainder of the unexpired term. In a one-party state like California, this renders a recall for governor nearly pointless.

If SCA 1 sounds familiar, it is nearly identical to SCA 3, which was introduced in the last legislative session but, fortunately, did not progress very far. Perhaps the reason the proposal stalled last year is the realization that, as a proposed constitutional amendment, it would have to be approved by a majority of the statewide electorate. Public polling reveals that Californians support direct democracy, including the right to bounce bad politicians.

Another threat to direct democracy is an effort by the municipal bond industry to obscure the true cost of tax hikes and bond measures.

Senate Bill 532, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, seeks to weaken two existing transparency bills, Assembly Bills 809

The Balancing Act

Letters to the Editor

Age requirement

EDITOR:

There is a minimum age requirement to run for president. Why isn’t there a maximum age limit?

PETER J. MEYER Somerset

That’s who you voted for

EDITOR:

It was a horrific situation when a train filled with toxic chemicals derailed in the middle of the small community of East Palestine, Ohio, with approximately 5,000 residents. Those in charge, both train ownership and government, decided it would be easier and more expedient to light the chemical spill on fire without evacuating the citizens, forcing them to escape the mayhem with their lives.

For the longest time only the local news and Fox News reported on the situation. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg oddly blamed Trump, while seemingly not taking the catastrophe seriously. Then “The View” host Joy Behar blamed the residents of East Palestine for causing this situation because they voted for Trump.

This scenario of choosing winners and losers of government support based on political affiliation keeps repeating itself. I would hope the community leaders of Grizzly Flat and East Palestine reach out because of their common bond of being ignored and lied to by the government, and become sister communities.

They both are suffering through calamities caused by the government and are ignored and chastised by the rest of the country based only because of their political affiliation.

KEN STEERS Cameron Park

True journalism

EDITOR:

The Mountain Democrat appears to have chosen to copy the recently uncovered marketing strategy of Fox Media by abandoning truth in order to appeal to the political preferences of its primary readership. Since it’s being done using the “Letters” section, not an editorial, the paper retains plausible deniability.

The case in point is another letter from Curtiss Weidmer, M.D., decrying the alleged barbarity introduced by the 2023 California abortion law. Weidmer casts aside whatever credibility he might have had as a certified medical professional and assumes the cloak of “big lie” conspiracy theorists by fracturing reality to suit his political premise. Back in December 2022, Dr. Weidmer went 2,454 years into the past to make the spurious claim that California’s abortion law allows the practice of infanticide, as practiced in ancient Sparta. Recently, he assumed the pretense of masquerading as a “baby” in a birth canal pleading for its life. He would have us believe that because of the California Reproductive Privacy Act, a self-aware human fetus is now in dire danger of homicide by the anonymous “they.”

It is common and unremarkable for the Mountain Democrat to publish the opinions of its right-wing readership with their conspiratorial embellishments; but when the opiner identifies as an M.D. with proprietary knowledge, they must be held to a higher standard. Instead of using the legitimacy of his medical training to justify his moral objection to legal abortion, Weidmer uses it to misdirect, creating a false equivalence that conjures a murderous society that terminates the lives of the unborn for absolutely no reason. His gruesome description of surgical instruments drilling into the brains of “helpless babies” is purposely taken out of context to evoke a scene of immoral brutality that exists only in a criminally warped mind. Although California’s new law doesn’t change the limits of pregnancy termination, in place since 1969, Weidmer uses his membership in the medical community to falsely claim that it is now legal to terminate viable fetuses in the process of natural birth.

By publishing false and misleading information under the guise of an opinion by a recognized medical expert, the Mountain Democrat not only plays fast and loose with the First Amendment, it severely damages it reputation as a trusted disseminator of the truth. A newspaper that allows facts to be mutilated and sacrificed on the altar of economic and political expediency, even in the op/ed section, does not deserve to be included under the mantle of journalism. Perhaps you would be more comfortable under the “poncho of propaganda.”

JOHN