US Politics
The Corrosion of Direct Democracy: How Proposition 13 Unleashed California's Ballot Initiative Arms Race
California's Proposition 13 in 1978 not only triggered a seismic shift in property tax policy and government financing, but also unleashed a decades-long cascade of costly ballot initiatives, now dominated by powerful special interests dueling over narrow economic and ideological agendas. This cynical weaponization of direct democracy by unions, corporations, lawyers, and politicians is a tragic betrayal of the grassroots civic spirit the initiative process was meant to empower, undermining deliberative governance and trapping voters in endless, expensive proxy wars.
