JOHN FUND: Vetoing Democracy: Justice Roberts’s clumsy opinion threatens the initiative process in 26 states.

John Eastman, a former dean of Chapman University’s law school, says he believes people of all political persuasions should worry about the “huge hole” Justice Roberts has blown in the initiative process in order to sidestep ruling on the merits of Proposition 8. “Someday, liberals could win an environmental-protection measure in a state and see a conservative governor and attorney general refuse to enforce or defend it,” he told me. “When that time comes, the proponents may seek their day in federal court and find that there’s only darkness because they lack any standing to defend their own law.”

The threat to the initiative process in 26 states is real. Starting with California, voters should quickly explore ways to craft some mechanism that will allow proponents to defend initiatives in court if elected officials refuse to do so. Sounds like a good subject for another initiative — and if such a measure were to pass, elected officials would probably be quite leery of trying to block it.

I dunno. The spirit of Erdogan seems pretty widespread these days.