{"id":40802236041,"date":"2012-02-13T12:49:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T17:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2012\/02\/13\/trentons-referendum-mania\/"},"modified":"2021-01-25T11:22:05","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T16:22:05","slug":"trentons-referendum-mania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2012\/02\/13\/trentons-referendum-mania\/","title":{"rendered":"Trenton’s Referendum Mania"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at\u00a0PolitickerNJ<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s referendum mania in Trenton!\u00a0 The governor and Republican legislators want to put same sex marriage to a public vote.\u00a0 Democratic legislators want to put charter school approval to a public vote.<\/p>\n

What do they have in common?\u00a0 In each case, the sponsors are opposed to the policy in question. \u00a0Many believe that they are\u00a0using the referendum option as a \u201cdemocratic\u201d smokescreen for a policy they don\u2019t want enacted.<\/p>\n

Not only is this bald-faced politics, but it\u2019s a slippery slope.\u00a0 The public lacks both access to information and the ability to deliberate on these types of issues \u2013 issues which our founders specifically said should be left to an informed, deliberative system of representative government.<\/p>\n

The New Jersey Supreme Court declared that the state must provide and protect identical legal rights for civilly joined same sex couples as it does for married heterosexual couples. Same sex marriage advocates argue this hasn\u2019t happened in practice under the state\u2019s civil union law.\u00a0 They have provided witnesses who give compelling stories of instances when their rights were denied.\u00a0 Opponents have argued these are isolated instances that can be corrected with improvements to existing law.<\/p>\n

The researcher in me says there is a pretty easy way to determine this.\u00a0 Take a random sample of same sex civil union couples and a matched sample of heterosexual couples married at the same time and survey them.\u00a0 If the former group has had significantly more problems with health insurance, parental rights, having next of kin rights honored, etc. \u2013 then the argument that civil unions don\u2019t meet the Court\u2019s mandate would be strong.\u00a0 If not, perhaps the incidents are isolated and modifications to the current bill are all that is needed.\u00a0 This is something that should be examined honestly by our three governmental branches.<\/p>\n

Polls, including a recent one by\u00a0Monmouth University\/NJ Press Media<\/a><\/em>, show that public support for same sex marriage has risen in the past couple of years.\u00a0 It appears that the debate \u2013 particularly the argument that civil unions are not providing equal rights \u2013 may be resonating with more New Jerseyans.\u00a0 Or perhaps, residents are simply getting tired of this debate and want to move in a definitive direction so government will start concentrating on other pressing issues.\u00a0 Either way, the state of public opinion is absolutely no justification for putting this issue on the ballot.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is you don\u2019t put civil rights to a public vote.\u00a0 The founders were very clear on this.\u00a0 That is why they created a Republic with (supposedly) deliberative institutions of elected representatives.\u00a0 Our system was specifically set up to protect the interests of groups who may be in a numerical minority. \u00a0The folks in Trenton may do well by brushing up on James Madison\u2019s argument to that effect in the Federalist Papers (#10).<\/p>\n

Specifically he wrote that the purpose of our system of government is \u201cto refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens \u2026 [so] that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the People, will be more consonant to the public good, than if pronounced by the people themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, I do agree that limited initiative and referendum, like the type championed by the late Congressman Bob Franks, makes a lot of sense.\u00a0 Borrowing and bonding \u2013 that should always be approved by those who are responsible to pay the debt.\u00a0 Certain other macro-fiscal issues are also appropriate for a public vote.\u00a0 And anything that requires an outright change to the state\u2019s Constitution requires voter approval.<\/p>\n

But putting anything beyond that on the ballot is an invitation to demagoguery.\u00a0 And once that door is open, it will be near impossible to close.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at\u00a0PolitickerNJ It\u2019s referendum mania in Trenton!\u00a0 The governor and Republican legislators want to put same sex marriage to a public vote.\u00a0 Democratic legislators want to put charter school approval to a public vote. What do they have in common?\u00a0 In each case, the sponsors are opposed to the policy in question. \u00a0Many believe that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":939,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40802236041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/939"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802236041"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802237016,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236041\/revisions\/40802237016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802236041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802236041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802236041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}