1986—What do actual citizens think of liberal judicial activists? By large margins, the people of California unseat state chief justice Rose Bird (66% no) and justices Cruz Reynoso (60% no) and Joseph Grodin (57% no). All three justices had been appointed by Jerry (“Moonbeam”) Brown, California’s governor from 1975 to 1983. Bird had voted to overturn death sentences in all 61 capital cases that had come before her, and all three were widely regarded as activists who imposed their own liberal policy preferences, particularly on crime and business issues.
2008—In reaction against the California supreme court’s May 2008 decision inventing a state constitutional right to same-sex marriage, California voters adopt Proposition 8, which adds to the state constitution a provision expressly declaring that “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”