Initiative-1000 was recently passed this last November in Washington State. This initiative involves the idea of euthanasia and is based on Oregon's death with dignity bill. Washington State is now in favor of allowing patients to be supplied with a lethal medication, only under certain circumstances of course. This is a great example of how law can vary in different regions. Washington was the second state to pass such an innovative bill, both states being in the Northwest. However, by doing a little research, it looks like the Northeast might begin to adopt similar bills, Pennsylvania being the third (article can be found here).
One example of how the law can vary from state to state involves the process of initiatives and law-making. In Washington State a voter can very easily create an initiative and get it on the ballot for November. All the voter would need is about 120,000 signatures, that's about the population of Everett, a city just north of Seatlle-my hometown. A voter can also attempt to have a congressman, a state executive, or a state legislator to sponsor and create such a bill for them. Unfortunately, I am unaware of the law-making process here in Pennsylvania so I cannot provide a comparison, although I'm fairly confident it is different.
What use does providing a different system in which to make laws benefit one state over another? Is this process derived from a moral position of the Northwest, or does it help in preserving the society of the Northwest? I don't know. But, by looking at such laws or regional habits we can attempt understand law and varying societies better which will allow us to use law in a more effective manner.
I believe that geographical discrepancies in the law can be attributed to cultural differences.
ReplyDeleteTake death penalty laws, for example. Since 1976, bloodthirsty Texas has performed 439 executions, four times as many as any other states. In comparison, New England states such as Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Maine have ratified statutes declaring that the death penalty is unconstitutional.
I'm not completely acquainted with the law-making or judicial processes in any of the aforementioned states. I would assume that in members of some type of legislature (elected by the people) chose to enact laws either banning or enabling the use of the penalty. Additionally, jurists and judges in Texas may be more willing to apply the death penalty because they view capital crimes as depraved immoral (at least to a greater extent then say New England residents).
At least in California, the ability to easily amend the state constitution via ballot initiatives has lead to a lot of problems. For example, Proposition 13, passed in 1978, was a ballot initiative in California which (essentially) eliminated property tax and required future state taxes to be approved by a 2/3 supermajority of the state House and state Senate.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting California ballot initiative was Proposition 8. This amended the California constitution, defining marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. The most interesting part of this is that Prop 8 overruled a previous Supreme Court (of California) decision ruling a previous ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. But, of course, now that banning same-sex marriage is written into their constitution, the only way to allow same-sex marriage is either through Federal legislation, SCOTUS ruling, or another California ballot initiative.
Honestly, I'm not sure how much the California system allows in preserving their society. It seems more a way to get a generally ill-informed and shortsighted public to write as constitutional amendments what should be regular, statutory law