For me the clown world started with Prop 187 in California. The voters, in an election, chose to deny government benefits to illegal immigrants.
Those in support of such benefits had seen their impending defeat, so they went shopping to find a "friendly" judge. The day after the proposition was enacted, the friendly judge deemed the will of the voters to be unconstitutional. That threw it into the court system. Except it never got fought. The CA governor, who wanted such benefits, would not allow the CA state attorneys to work on the case. Pulled any funding for that. So the voter-enacted new law would never survive, first deemed unconstitutional, then killed by CA governor with feel-good policies who wanted the benefits to flow.
Someone wrote above that similar things have happened with electric vehicle subsidies. I have seen this as well-- the will of the people ignored by officials who feel that pushing electric or green is simply what the taxpayers must fund, regardless of need or popularity.