On Referendums

A while back, I saw this BBC debate on the terms that Prime Minister Teresa May was able to draw up for Brexit. As expected, one spoke in favour, another against. The third panelist blew me away: he pointed out that it was now becoming increasingly clear to the public that Brexit was a bad idea, that staying in the EU was the lesser of two evils. Therefore, he argued, it was a time for another referendum with the same question: Stay or Leave? While a referendum is not legally binding, this sounded insane: what’s the point of a referendum if you’ll hold another one when you don’t like the outcome? And will they hold a re-re-referendum after that? Where does this stop?

So are referendums a bad idea per se? Is the general public unqualified to evaluate complicated questions, even one as “educated” as the British?

Conversely, Malcolm Gladwell’s book, David and Goliath, talks of Mike Reynolds, a man whose 18 yo daughter was killed during a robbery. By two repeat offenders. Reynolds became an activist, who concluded that:

“The penalties associated with breaking the law were too low.”

Reynolds came up with a short and simple proposal. For a second offense, your term would be double the one given to a first-time offender. And for a third offense, you’d be put away for 25 years minimum. No exceptions or loopholes.

Reynolds and his group collected thousands of signatures to qualify for a state referendum in California. It passed with 72% support and became a law (in)famously in 1994 known as the Three Strikes Law.

What did the “largest penal experiment in American history” reveal?

1)      The very folks Three Strikes should scare (criminals) aren’t exactly the most rational folks who do cost-benefit analysis before acting.

2)     The third strike happened to guys in their late 30’s, early 40’s. Statistically, they were past their “peak”. The system was locking away people who were probably not the biggest dangers to society anymore.

3)     And if you locked away younger men for long, they usually left behind kids too small to fend for themselves. Kids who’d then gravitate to crime.

And so in 2012, California called for state referendum to scale back Three Strikes: the argument was that the benefits were simply not worth the cost. Remember the law originated based on raw emotion that the general public could relate to. The repeal argument was based on reason and data. And yet, the 2012 referendum did vote to scale back Three Strikes radically.

Does Three Strikes prove the general public can respond to reason after all? Was the fault with the anti-Brexit campaigners who did a poor job explaining the risks? Or did the anti-Brexit campaigners not understand it themselves? In other words, does it prove that there’s no inherent problem with a referendum after all?