The people have spoken: to the courts!

In 1993, the Western Massachusetts town of Greenfield voted down a re-zoning that would have allowed a Wal-Mart in town. So instead the behemoth was erected in Hadley to the south and…all the Greenfield shoppers drove there. So in 2004 when the issue came up again, Greenfield voters overwhelming voted for Wal-Mart (2-1 margin) and against the “smart growth” activists. Sometime after the vote the local arts weekly ran an article that said it was now up to the mayor and the new pro-growth city council to decide whether or not to move forward with the Wal-Mart plan.

I found this to wicked hilarious: why wouldn’t the pro-growth councilmen support the very issue that got them elected? Wouldn’t – didn’t – the electorate demand it? Imagine if the voters rejected the Wal-Mart store but the Greenfield council overrode the will of the people and voted for re-zoning. The hippies would be apoplectic.

Jeff Jacoby makes a similar point in today’s Boston Globe on gay marriage – “The people’s voice on gay marriage”:

When California lawmakers narrowly passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage last month, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that he would veto it. Not because he opposes legal rights for gay and lesbian couples -- he doesn't -- but because he opposes treating California elections as meaningless. Five years ago, Californians went to the polls and approved Proposition 22, a ballot initiative confirming the traditional definition of marriage. Unless they change their minds or are overruled by the Supreme Court, Schwarzenegger said, their decision ought to be binding. As his spokesperson put it in a statement, ''We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote."

Jacoby reviews the battle here in Massachusetts and notes:

In an earlier era, liberalism and respect for the vote went hand in hand. Liberals fought to extend the franchise to women. They were leaders in the civil rights movement, raising their voices -- and sometimes laying down their lives -- for the right of Southern blacks to vote. A century ago, progressives championed the direct election of US senators, a movement that culminated in the adoption of the 17th Amendment in 1913.
But today liberalism all too often displays a strong antidemocratic streak, and nowhere is it more blatant than on the issue of same-sex marriage.

The reason that Democrats have fought so tenaciously to keep conservative judges off the bench is because judicial fiat is their last refuge.