What referendums are coming up in your state? In Maine, we have five. Marijuana legalization, education funding, regulating private firearm sales, raising minimum wage, and use of ranked choice voting for all state offices. What do you have coming up in your states?
California has a bunch.
Currently, opponents are spending millions and telling whopping big lies about a tobacco tax increase. They’re trying to make it sound like the worst thing since Stalin and Hitler became buddies. The desperation is almost risible.
In California, there’s:[ul]
[li]Legalize marijuana[/li][li]Eliminate the death penalty and all existing death sentences[/li][li]Allow criminals sentenced to death to be kept in any prison rather than just San Quentin, and other changes concerning appeals[/li][li]Money earned from sales of carryout grocery bags would have to go into a state environmental fund rather than kept by the market owner[/li][li]Enforce the statewide ban on single-use plastic bags, and enforce a 10 cent per bag charge on other (e.g. paper) single-use bags[/li][li]A $9 billion dollar bond issue (read: tax increase) for sub-college and two-year college facilities[/li][li]An indefinite extension of a current hospital fee (that has matching federal money)[/li][li]A requirement that “revenue bonds” (if I read this right, these are bonds paid for by means other than directly out of the state treasury) exceeding $2 billion have voter approval[/li][li]A requirement that all bills in the legislature be available online for 72 hours before final passage[/li][li]A 12-year extension on a tax on income over $250,000 that pays for sub-college and 2-year college expenses[/li][li]The aforementioned $2/pack cigarette tax[/li][li]Allowing for early parole consideration for nonviolent felons[/li][li]Allowing public schools to decide how to teach students learning English[/li][li]An advisory vote asking California’s members of the U.S. House and Senate to support a Constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission[/li][li]Actors in adult films must wear condoms in sex scenes[/li][li]Banning the state from paying more for prescription drugs than what the US Department of Veterans Affairs pays[/li][li]Background check would be required to purchase gun ammunition, and commercial sellers would require a Department of Justice license[/li][/ul]
You should hear the ads about San Francisco’s proposed soda tax (1 cent per ounce; that’s about 65 cents on a 2-liter bottle). The “No” side points out that the tax is paid by the distributor, who will almost certainly pass it along to the retailers, but the retailers can make up the money any way they want, and don’t have to charge more for soda; the “Yes” side counters with, “A court said it’s a ‘tax on soda’, so that’s what it is (and never mind that the “No” side is probably right about how the retailers will make up the money, but even if the tax was applied to the retailer, similar to how there’s a recycling value on each bottle, what stops the retailers from lowering the price of soda to cover the tax and raising prices of other items anyway?).” Besides, I have a feeling the real target is fast food, where it would be harder to move the cost to other items.
We have a weird one here in Colorado. Apparently it is too easy to change the Constitution so the politicians have banded together and if Amendment 71 passes, a proposed constitutional amendment would require signatures of at least 2% of the registered voters in each state senate district to make it on the ballot.
One of the plastic bag propositions in California will repeal the current plastic bag ban if you vote yes, the other one will repeal the plastic bag ban if you vote no.
Seems somebody’s upset that something got passed because folks in the big cities wanted it…
I’m interested in amendment 69 in Colorado, the creation of a single payer health care system.
Damn. Oh, and meanwhile the current bag ban is on hold waiting for the votes on these.
We also have Prop 61 - “Prohibits state from buying any prescription drug from a drug manufacturer at price over lowest price paid for the drug by United States Department of Veterans Affairs. Exempts managed care programs funded through Medi-Cal. Fiscal Impact: Potential for state savings of an unknown amount depending on (1) how the measure’s implementation challenges are addressed and (2) the responses of drug manufacturers regarding the provision and pricing of their drugs.”
Notice that the law does not say that the manufacturers can’t sell it at a higher cost, just that agencies using State money can’t buy at that price.
Here in PA we’ve voting on a constitution amendment to raise the mandatory retirement age for judges from 70 to 75 (technically 12/31 of the year they reach that age). It was originally scheduled for the April primary, but the legislature voted to delay it until the general election. They did this too late to change the primary ballots so we’ve already voted on it, but those votes don’t count. :smack:
Need I ask if Amendment 71 met it’s own proposed signature requirements? :rolleyes:
Well somebody’s got to try it; hopefully Colorado will be better than Vermont.
Both were put on the ballot by plastic bag manufacturers in a deliberate effort to confuse voters in the hope that at least one will go their way.
I am voting yes on all five of Maine’s questions. I am most excited about number five: Ranked Choice Voting for all offices. (Except president and municipal races). This will prevent another disaster in the gubernatorial election like we had the last couple times.
Is that like instant runoff voting?
Tennessee’s ballot measures are voted on at the same time as our gubernatorial elections, which went from every 6 years to every 4 years starting in 1958. Consequently, we’ll have to wait until 2018 to vote on whatever the crazies on our Capitol Hill tell us to (no referendums allowed).
Ohio doesn’t have anything for a change. There were several proposals, but their backers failed to buy enough signatures. They were mostly pretty asinine (one was double-super-stupid term limits instead of our current normally-stupid term limits), so it’s good that they failed.
It is instant runoff voting.
Here in WA, we’ve got;
- Incease the minimum wage to $13.50 by 2020 with annual inflation-indexed raises thereafter and require employers to provide paid sick leave
- Establish a campaign finance system that allows each voter to “donate” state funds to up to three candidates of their choice, paid for by eliminating the sales tax exemption for nonresidents
- Allow court orders to temporarily block mentally ill or violent people from access to firearms
- Increase criminal penalties for identity theft and credit fraud
- Impose a carbon tax on fossil fuels, with a matching reduction in sales tax
- Urge Congress to amend the Constitution to nullify Citizens United
Plus a couple non-binding advisory votes and a slight tweak to the redistricting commission.
I’ll be voting yes on all of them except the Citizens United one, because it’s mostly a pointless gesture anyway and I think the proposed fix (it specifically calls for an amendment stating that speech is not protected if it involves financial expenditure and that artificial persons do not have constitutional rights) would do more harm than good.
Massachusetts has:
Legalize marijuana (seems to be popular across the country…)
Open one more slots parlor.
Open 12 more charter schools per year.
A farm cruelty petition.
I haven’t decided yet.
I would have liked to see how the campaign finance idea works in Seattle before trying it statewide. It’s an interesting idea, but I’d like to see it in practice for at least one election. I’m also curious as to whether “eliminating the sales tax exemption” extends to online orders (and am too lazy to look it up right now).
No ballot measures in New York.
I hope the marijuana one passes. I hate, loathe weed personally and I’ll never smoke it. But the so-called War on Drugs has done so much damage already.
I miss being in California where they have all the good propositions.
That’s not how I read it. Only the second one repeals the ban (and since the ban is not in effect yet and the title says “ban on single-use bags,” I don’t think that many people are going to be confused); the first one says that if the ban is put in place, the money collected from selling (e.g.) paper bags would have to go to the state to be put into an environmental fund. If the both pass, and the one that specifies the ban gets more votes than the environmental fund one, then the money from selling bags is kept by the markets that sold them.
I don’t think anything will top the three petitions that were circulating involving something called the Sodomy Suppression Act:
- The act itself, which required not just a death sentence for anyone convicted of sodomy, but that it be carried out “with bullets” (the petition was withdrawn after a court ruled that such a law would be illegal)
- A law saying that anyone who submits anything along the lines of the Sodomy Suppression Act be fined and be required to take some sort of anti-homophobic training;
- A law banning the sale and consumption of shellfish (which is mentioned in Leviticus along with the “ban” on homosexuality).
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, in addition to the soda tax, there are some other interesting propositions:
A ban on tents on public sidewalks
Lowering the voting age to 16 for local elections
Allowing non-citizens who are parents/guardians of children 18 and younger to vote in school board elections