On: Pa. House passes 'click-to-cancel' subscription bills

[toomuchtodo]

Usually, it’s only “states rights” when conservatives want something. To be determined if this sticks as it rolls out to more states, or the federal government attempts to infringe on state authority. No different than the Missouri governor overriding voters and repealing voter-approved paid sick leave and minimum wage law, Ohio conservatives attempting to override voters on reproductive healthcare, Florida raising the bar for ballot initiatives, Texas gerrymandering efforts currently in progress, etc.

“Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.” -― David Frum

https://www.google.com/search?q=hypocrisy+of+states+rights

[babypuncher → toomuchtodo]

Don't forget what happened in Utah last year.

In 2018, voters passed the Better Boundaries ballot initiative, requiring our legislature to adopt non-gerrymandered congressional maps. In 2020, the legislature passed a law that effectively ignored the results of the initiative, and they drew even more gerrymandered maps after the census.

We sued the state, and last summer our Supreme Court unanimously agreed that, per the state constitution, the legislature does not have the power to unilaterally gut laws passed by ballot initiative after the fact.

So the legislature haphazardly put together their own ballot initiative that would have amended our constitution to give them the authority to ignore the results of ballot initiatives. This was put on our ballots, but our Supreme Court came through unanimously again, saying that the text of the initiative was grossly misleading and that they did not meet the constitutional requirement to notify the electorate far enough in advance of election day. This initiative was on our ballots as they had already been printed, but the results were not counted per the Supreme Court's order.

My state government is still fighting tooth and nail to kill Better Boundaries before the 2026 election. None of these lawmakers give a single shit about the will of the people.

[asdfasvea → babypuncher]

Sinmilar thing happened in Missouri in the 90s, but without supreme court help. Voters put a law on the ballot, it passes, legislature passes another law cancelling it out.

So now when the voters want something they no longer put a law on the ballot, they put a Missouri amendment on the ballot. Those can't just be overwritten by a legislature law, those must either be found unconstitutional or canceled out by another amendment.

It's a fun game the voters of Missouri and their representatives have created for themselves.

[heymijo → babypuncher]

Beat for beat what has happened in Ohio. Same for enshrining abortion rights in our state constitution. The state legislature is hostile to the will of the people.