Our government, national and state legislatures, have a paternalistic attitude toward we the people. They treat us like little children who are incapable of ever making valid decisions about anything that affects our well being.
On the national level we are all aware our representatives and senators only work for the large special interests that provide them with the lucre to maintain themselves in their elected positions. The plain pleas of the people who elect them are ignored.
I’ve lived in the great State of Montana for almost fifty years. In that span of time the people have managed to place several items on the ballot. Some of them had merit and some of them may have been questionable. As I recall nearly all of them were voted in by the voting population.
After they were voted in by the people either the Supreme Court or the Montana Legislature found a way to obviate the expressed will of the people. It is really a joke. It is an exercise in futility for the people to exercise their right to place an item on the ballot, then vote it into existence, only to watch the Supreme Court or the Legislature emasculate their efforts.
In my fifty years we have had majorities by both of the political parties when the people proposed some legislation to be voted on. It made no difference, the results were always the same. The Supreme Court and the Legislature always did their job and saw that the will of the people was ostracized.
No wonder only half of the eligible voters go to the polls to cast their sacred ballot.
John Robinson
Corvallis