To: The Wisconsin State House, The Wisconsin State Senate, and Governor Tony Evers
Keep our democracy representative.
Ignore petitions that request that you grant the citizens the legal right to start state wide referendums.
Why is this important?
Jeffrey Hazen has started a petition to ask you to legalize state wide referendums. To my knowledge the legislature of Wisconsin can bring an issue to a statewide referendum only in the case of an amendment to the constitution of the state of Wisconsin. This is how it should be.
Giving citizens the legal right to propose laws begs the question of why we would even have a legislative branch of our government. The point of representative democracy is so that we the people of the state of Wisconsin can elect supposed experts to write consistent, well thought out laws. When citizens, many of whom are not experts on law, are given the legal right to propose laws, there is a liability for inconsistent laws, poorly thought out laws, confusing laws, etc...
If one merely looks at the example of California, one can see the abyss that direct democracy can lead.
California has a petition signing industry. There are firms that cater to people who want to bring proposals to a state wide referendum. These firms charge for their services. Thus, the claim that direct democracy in the form of state wide referendums will dilute the power of money is laughable. Any corporation can pay a petition firm to get them enough signatures to get their desired proposal brought before the people. Then, the same sorts of propaganda that are used to get corrupt politicians elected will get their proposal passed. Citizen started statewide referendums do not dilute the power of money in our democracy.
Further, when we look at California we notice that they haven't passed a budget on time in 5 years. They have seen budget deficits in the tens of billions of dollars consistently because the people are easily persuaded to increase services that the government offers them, but difficult to persuade to increase taxes in order to pay for those services. This has put California's entire economy in jeopardy. We don't need that in Wisconsin.
The answer to our woes is not to give the people the power of a direct democracy.
Giving citizens the legal right to propose laws begs the question of why we would even have a legislative branch of our government. The point of representative democracy is so that we the people of the state of Wisconsin can elect supposed experts to write consistent, well thought out laws. When citizens, many of whom are not experts on law, are given the legal right to propose laws, there is a liability for inconsistent laws, poorly thought out laws, confusing laws, etc...
If one merely looks at the example of California, one can see the abyss that direct democracy can lead.
California has a petition signing industry. There are firms that cater to people who want to bring proposals to a state wide referendum. These firms charge for their services. Thus, the claim that direct democracy in the form of state wide referendums will dilute the power of money is laughable. Any corporation can pay a petition firm to get them enough signatures to get their desired proposal brought before the people. Then, the same sorts of propaganda that are used to get corrupt politicians elected will get their proposal passed. Citizen started statewide referendums do not dilute the power of money in our democracy.
Further, when we look at California we notice that they haven't passed a budget on time in 5 years. They have seen budget deficits in the tens of billions of dollars consistently because the people are easily persuaded to increase services that the government offers them, but difficult to persuade to increase taxes in order to pay for those services. This has put California's entire economy in jeopardy. We don't need that in Wisconsin.
The answer to our woes is not to give the people the power of a direct democracy.