It's voting day! Pit your state ballot measures

The BBQ Pit
41

Another one here in the Evergreen State was an initiative to repeal the recent hike in the gasoline tax. Sure, gas seems to cost too much and you hate to hand too much money to some very well-off construction companies, but don’t these dopes realize that this state is full of seriously dangerous roadways that need that money for repairs? We’ve been underfunding this stuff for way too long.

We’ve got a double-decked viaduct running alongside downtown Seattle that looks just like the ones that pancaked in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and it almost fell over the last time we had a big earthquake. It’s full of cracks that the highway folks have been staring at for years with terror in their hearts.

Maybe some voters will remember that there’ve been a few major rockfalls along I-90 on Snoqualmie pass recently, including one that killed two women and one that closed the pass completely until just yesterday. And that the Department of Transportation knew the mountainside was unstable but couldn’t afford to do anything about it.

Unfortunately, our state has a long history of wanting stuff without funding. They all think spending money is just fine, just so long as someone else pays for it.

By the way, I must agree that the smoking ban initiative was also stupid. I’d love it if more of my places would go smoke-free, but this measure was just poorly thought-out and vaguely written. Besides the 25-foot nonsense, it didn’t specify anything about enforcement. It seems to say the Department of Health would oversee things, but allows Seattle PD to issue tickets when they feel there’s a violation. As the editor of one of our local weeklies points out, since the law is almost impossible to comply with, any establishment could be ticketed almost at will. This would allow the worst enforcement officers (either Health or PD) to harrass any club they didn’t like with perfectly legal citations.

42

Well, all I got to do was vote for city council and school committee today (I think Massachusetts puts all ballot initiatives on even numbered years), and I have no idea who most of them are, and I think most of the real power in the city is wielded by the city manager, which is not an elected position. On the other hand, I did do something no one else in this thread did, which is use the single transferable vote method of voting for my first time. It would have been more exciting had I known much about anyone running. Unfortunately, all the press seems focused on that city across the river (Boston).

But I do have a few comments on things in this thread.

Actually, you have a few errors here. For one thing, Mass. law prohibits ballot questions that merely reverse court decisions. Also, the previous initiative, which would have mandated civil unions was abandoned by the “not even civil unions” crowd that was hoping last time that they could get the Supreme Judicial Court to hold off on implementing SSM until a vote had been taken.

As far as I understand it, a legislative proposal requires a majority vote in two successive constitutional conventions to be placed on the ballot. A citizen initiative requires 60,000 or so signatures and the approval of 25% of one constitutional convention to pass. A constitutional convention is both houses of the legislature meeting together, chaired by the President of the Senate. There is currently a proposition underway that, if it gets 60,000 (perhaps give or take) signatures by some date late this month, and gets approved by next year’s constitutional convention (with only 25% being necessary), will be on the 2008 ballot.

This proposition would also make no requirement for civil unions. The AG has, I believe officially, stated that this does not violate the provision against reversing a court decision, or any other provision that would prevent him from certifying it as valid. The strongest foes of gay marriage abandoned the previous ballot measure because it would have required civil unions with all the rights and priviledges of marriage (proposals for no civil unions and civil unions that mean whatever the legislature might make them mean both failed.). Due to the different requirements, the minority of legislators that support “gays shall not do anything even slightly legally matrimonial” can get this initiative put on the ballot.

Or, the constitutional convention can do what it did last time it considered a citizen initiative to ban gay marriage (well before the matter had been taken to the courts), and the chair (at the time, senate president Tom Birmingham) could gavel the meeting to a close on a simple majority before taking up the question, which would have only required 25% support to get on the ballot. I guess it remains to be seen. Current S.P. is Robert Travaglini, my state senator, who seems disinterested in actual marriage, but unwilling to accept anything other than civil unions that include all the rights and privileges of marriage.

Well, I spent a bit much more time than I meant there, but on to others:

Actually, I have nothing good to say here, other than the point that had it not been explained later, the math wouldn’t have worked out.

You have to admit that convincing people that living in some godforsaken Arctic wasteland for four years is a pretty difficult proposition to begin with :wink:

43

Well, for those following along at home, Texas has become the 19th state to add a gay marriage ban to its constitution. A vast majority (76%) voted “yes.” My own marriage feels safer already.

44

Sigh. Well, Slacker, you were right and I was wrong. 76%!!! Sigh.

45

I hate the whole ballot-initiative process. I think the usual results are a travesty, and run strongly contrary to the ideals of a representative democracy.

Nevertheless I am delighted the Washington anti-smoking ban passed. Yes, it’s a fucked-up bill, with the 25-feet prohibition, and unclear enforcement guidelines and all.

But I really hate smoking, and I think in the long term it will be better for Washington’s economy. I, for one, will start going to my local neighborhood watering holes a lot more often now, as will many people I know.

But almost as much as I hate smoking, I think this stupidly constructed anti-smoking bill is just what is needed to show some of the people who most habitually think ballot measures (a.k.a. interfering with the workings of actual givernment) are nifty, that, well, maybe, just maybe, they’re not.

Check it out. NO, they’re ubiquitously a very bad idea.

I believe in stopping smoking in public places. It is a worthy goal. This bill fubars it all up, dammit. It should have been properly handled by state legislature, with, yes, all the wrangling and negotiating and so on. Whether that would have really happened is another story, but I don’t think the answer is to come up with occsionally well-intended but half-baked ballot measures that totally are out of tune with a “big picture” of the state’s needs. ALL of them pretty much belong in that camp.

Stop ballot-iniatives!

46

I, on the other hand, love ballot initiatives. Anything that offers an alternative to corrupt, self-serving politicians is a plus, no matter how abused it is.

In California this year, all the propositions lost. I actually favored a couple of them, but not passionately. The good news is that all of Ah-nolds props bit it hard. See what happens when you lie to the people, Muscles? Eventually they wise up.

47

I tend to agree. I’m not for stopping them completely, but I have no problem setting the bar higher. More sigs on the petition, a higher percentage of the vote required, something. I don’t think micro-managing government is my job. My job is to pay attention to what my representatives do, and if I don’t like it, vote them out.

48

My home town of Lubbock voted in favor of banning gay marriage to the tune of 83% for the ban, 17% against. I am ashamed of my city.

What kind of person points at other people and says, “Hey, YOU! You get less freedom!”?

49

I see that San Francisco has couraegously decided to ban all guns, and requires existing owners to turn in their firearms.

Seems to me they also tried that back when Dianne Feinstein was mayor, and the California courts ruled that state law prohibited cities from enacting such a local law.

Does anyone know if California state law has changed over the intervening ~20 years to permit this sort of local ban?

50

It’s all about the framing of the issue. A lot of people look at this kind of think so simply that there’s no way they’d consider voting against it. Gay = bad, so this amendment = good.

I asked a friend of mine who voted for it about this and got basically the above response. God is clear on what a marriage should be, yadda yadda yadda. I agree, but does that mean it should be the law? We don’t live in First Baptist Church, we live in the United States of America.

He responded that a majority of people want it so what’s the problem? The problem is that people who are in control tend to think they’ll be in control forever. What happens when Catholics are the majority in Texas and amend the constitution to make birth control illegal? Maybe that’s far fetched, but so is the idea that a Texas judge would have overturned the family code that previously definined marriage.

Like I said though, people don’t consider the big picture. They don’t look at these things from all sides. They hear about voting to ban gay marriage in church on Sunday and head to the polls to dutifully respond on Tuesday.

You could say the whole deal is making me a tad cynical. :wink:

51

When the precinct-by-precinct results come out I’m guessing my wife and I may well be the only two “Nay’s” in our precinct on Texas’ “Marriage Definition” amendment. Everyone I saw at the polling place were older couples dressed in their Sunday go to church clothes.

Enjoy,
Steven

52

Hey, I have some friends in Wylie that I’m positive voted “no”. They used to live in that great metropolis of Culleoka.

53

Could someone who voted against Arnold’s redistricting proposition possibly explain why to me? I’m genuinely curious, as this seems like an almost unmitigatedly good idea, regardless of what you think of the Gubernator himself. Gerrymandering meant that of something like 150-odd congressional and legislative seats that underwent elections last year, not one changed hands. How can this be democratic? Check out the insane lengths gone to in order to ensure seats are safe from the dangerous vagaries of voter intention. Why was Prop 77 rejected? I realise that very few states in the US have independent districting committees, but surely this was a chance to genuinely improve the state of California’s politics.

54

Bravo for this sentiment. I wish more people understood this. I remember getting piled on in GD once for expressing such thoughts.

If you don’t feel strongly in favor of a ballot measure, vote NO. If you don’t fully understand everything about a ballot measure, vote NO. Voting YES changes the law. A NO vote just keeps the status quo.

I like ballot measures, and I’m glad to have them as a part of the process. However, it annoys me to no end how many stupid things get passed because people simply don’t know what they’re voting for and seem to use YES as their default. NO should always be the default vote for these.

55

No, and no one seriously believes it won’t get overturned. The news anchor I was watching this morning quoted the mayor as saying he fully expects the law to be challenged immediately.

56

In my case : He’s a Republican, and I simply don’t trust them. I don’t like the Dems either, but I’m genuinely afraid of the Republicans. If a Republican proposes something, I consider it a bad idea unless I see strong evidence otherwise. I did not see such evidence, so I voted against.

57

Perhaps it is so that a new redistricting process needs to be adopted. However, this election did not need to happen. There was nothing that urgent about the redistricting issue, or any of the others.

The initiative process in California has been corrupted to the point that it is more likely to produce in mischief than improvement. Hiram Johnson’s contribution to the state constitution was well-intentioned, but it didn’t anticipate, and was not designed to counteract the negative effects of, moneyed special interests masquerading as grass-roots populist movements.

58

Cheers for the answer. I guess I disagree - one could argue that in a state with such well-documented political problems it is perhaps most urgent that the political system itself is fixed. From an outsider’s perspective, it seems that a great deal of the political deadlock in California is due to the utterly uncompetitive congressional politics, and the polarisation that this induces, since candidates seem only to prosper by taking to the extremes of whichever party has the stranglehold on a particular district.

I quite agree that the initiative process itself is a large part of the problem, but it seems that if anything, the redistricting proposal would be an example of something for which an initiative is ideal: wresting control from the legislature of something that they would never willingly let go. I agree that if one objects to the parade of Propositions (and this is a sensible stance), then outright rejection is a good move in general; however, I find it difficult to see how independent redistricting is to be achieved otherwise. Furthermore, by (hopefully) ensuring a more competitive and responsive legislature, sensible redistricting would arguably reduce the need for future initiatives.

Der Trihs: Do you not consider the fact that 153 congressional and legislative seats were up for election last year without a single change of possession evidence that something is not right? Do you believe that the people of California are so happy with their legislators that they voted every single one back in? Do you think that districts of the shapes that I linked to are natural, or the result of cynical manipulation for partisan gain? What would it take to convince you that allowing politicians to draw their own districts is a bad idea? Isn’t it kind of self-evident? And have I worn out my question-mark key? Tune in next week to find out…

59

No. There’s a lot of feel-good apparent decisiveness in the adage “Do something, even if it’s wrong.” But, largely because of the fact that the process makes it impossible for professional legislators to undo, or even repair, crappy mistakes that amateurs foist upon themselves (and the rest of us who still have to live with the results), the initiative process is not a tool that can be expected to produce positive solutions to complex problems.

Take term limits. It seemed like a good, populist idea at the time. But now that we have them, it has become apparent that governing and legislating are skills that require their own learning curve if they are to be exercised effectively. Term limits make it virtually impossible for an individual to remain in office long enough to master those skills. But the only way to get rid of them, or even to modify them, is to have it done through the initiative process. Given that: a) it is nuanced debate about complex issues that will lead to the best solution; and b) California voters have demonstrated in the past a propensity to select the sound bite over the nuanced argument, the chances of our screwed-up term-limits law ever getting fixed through the initiative process are on a par with, say, Clothahump ever accepting a Cabinet appointment from President Hillary Clinton.

Our initiative process is a freakin’ sledgehammer. The problems facing California are more akin to plastic pouches of ketchup from Carl’s Jr. than they are to huge slabs of concrete that need to be smashed up and taken away.

60

What are the odds that a Republican backed measure will result in anthing other than a Republican gerrymandering of the state ? I don’t believe for a moment that Arnie and friends are even remotely well meaning; they would not have proposed this unless they thought it would slant things their way.