Empower Politicians More Than Voters?

Initiative: A process of a participatory democracy that empowers the people to propose legislation and to enact or reject the laws at the polls independent of the lawmaking power of the governing body. The people start it and finish it.

Referendum: A general vote by the electorate on a single legislative question that has been referred to them for a direct decision. Often a response to a government action.

Recall: The right or procedure by which a public official may be removed from a position by a vote of the people prior to the end of the term of office.

What do these guys have to say about it?

Well, listen to Abraham Lincoln. He assailed his opponents because they made "war upon the first principle of popular government, the rights of the people", because they "boldly advocated...the denial to the people of the right to participate in the selection of public officers except the legislative," and because they argued "that large control by the people in government" is the "source of all political evil." Mind you, I am quoting from Lincoln’s words uttered over fifty years ago. They are applicable in letter and in spirit to our opponents today. 

They apply without the change of a word to those critics who assail us because we advocate the initiative and the referendum and, where necessary, the recall, and because we stand for the right of the people to control all their public servants, including the judges when the judges exercise a legislative function.
-- Theodore Roosevelt, February 12, 1913