Pubdate: Mon, 25 Jun 2012
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2012 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.

SOMETIMES, FAILURE IS A GOOD THING

Direct democracy  the right of citizens to recall public officials, 
to pass laws by initiative or to repeal laws enacted by the state or 
local government  can be a wonderful thing. It's failures can also be 
a wonderful thing.

Consider the citizens initiatives that you won't have to mess with in 
November because they failed to collect enough signatures to win a 
spot on the ballot.

In San Diego, there was the news last week  good news, in our book 
that a proposed ballot measure to regulate and tax medical marijuana 
dispensaries had collected fewer than 20,000 of the 62,057 signatures 
required by the deadline. Good news, we say, because if an effective 
law is to be written that protects the legitimate desire of truly 
sick people to have access to marijuana, while also protecting 
children, neighborhoods and the broader public from dispensary 
mayhem, it will not be written by the people who stand to profit from 
those dispensaries.

Statewide, an initiative to legalize marijuana  medical or otherwise 
also failed to collect sufficient signatures by the June 15 deadline. 
It was just the latest of five failed statewide initiatives this year 
to legalize or weaken restrictions or penalties related to the drug. 
Efforts are still under way to qualify local marijuana-related ballot 
measures in Encinitas, Del Mar, Solana Beach, Lemon Grove, La Mesa 
and Imperial Beach. We wish the good citizens of those cities well.

But dopey dope initiatives are not all there was to worry about this 
year, particularly on the statewide ballot.

There was one initiative to increase, by nearly 100-fold, the size of 
the California Legislature. It failed.

There was another, which also failed, that would have had voters 
elect two representatives, rather than one, for each state Assembly 
and Senate district  one man and one woman in each. Such equity might 
well be a good thing. But by constitutional fiat?

Another failure was a statewide initiative to impose an Arizona-style 
immigration law on California requiring, among other elements of 
horrible public policy, that state and local police agencies enforce 
federal immigration law.

Still another would have compelled local sheriffs and police chiefs 
to issue licenses to carry concealed firearms to anyone without a 
history of mental illness, drug abuse, domestic violence or who was 
under criminal investigation, indictment or already subject to a 
restraining order.

Sadly, what won't be on the ballot in November will come as little 
solace when voters see everything that will be on the ballot.

Already waiting for your vote are eight statewide propositions, 
including several hot-button measures to repeal the death penalty, 
amend the state's three-strikes law and to require special labeling 
of genetically engineered foods.

See? We told you failure could be a wonderful thing.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom