“A system which permits one judge to block with the stroke of a pen what 4,736,180 state residents voted to enact as law, tests the integrity of our constitutional democracy.”

This was the opinion of Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain, who led a three-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last Tuesday in overturning an injunction against Proposition 209. In doing so, the panel affirmed the right to allow citizens to make law at the ballot box.

Now, if a majority of the 20 federal judges in the 9th Circuit vote to review this decision, an 11-member panel of judges will hand down their opinion on the constitutionality and fairness of Proposition 209.

Whatever the outcome, both sides of this issue expect the matter to wind up in the Supreme Court. Until this happens, however, it is likely that Proposition 209 will become law.

Proposition 209 was passed in December by 55 percent of California’s voters. The law essentially bans all state-enacted preferences that correspond to the policy of affirmative action.

Backers of Proposition 209 are now trying to export their ballot-box win to many other states around the nation. Already, Washington will put the measure on its ballot next November. Three other states are expected to follow.

Proposition 209 should have become law as soon as it was passed, and specific legal challenges could have then been brought against the measure. The kind of stagnation happening now guarantees that the will of the people will fall by the wayside as courts try to discern when they will listen to the people and when they will ignore 4,736,180 votes.

The phenomenon of courts who choose to ignore the will of the people has only increased as of late. It happened with Prop. 187 and it will surely continue to happen as Californians try to deal with complicated issues in their complex state. The voting process was set up to reflect the decisions that Californians make about their state. Whatever those decisions are they must be realized by the California legal system because if they are ignored then we have a state ruled by the minority rather than the majority. What follows is a dictatorial system in which the view of the public is wiped out of the system.

It is, indeed, unfortunate that the signature of one judge blocks the votes and will of so many Californians. The courts are now left to sift through the mess. Let’s hope they’ll do what’s right.