Minnesota has only 1 Constitutional Amendment: a proposal to set up an independent, citizen-run board to set Legislative salaries.
Basically, this is an attempt to get the salaries raised so non-wealthy people can afford to serve in the Legislature. The current salaries are quite low ($31,000/year) and most people can’t live on that. (A few legislators have even filed bankruptcy in recent years.) But it’s considered political suicide, especially for Republicans, to vote for a salary increase – that hasn’t happened for 17 years. So this proposal would set up a Board to set the salaries, and everybody expects that they will look at the workload and increase the salary.
The proposers were smart in the way they worded this: it appears on the ballot including the wording “… hereby taking away legislators’ power to set their own salaries.” I can see a lot of anti-government type seeing that wording & voting for this amendment.
Personally, I voted in favor of it.
New Mexico has one constitutional amendment to change the way bail is handled.
Right now, it’s hard to be denied bail (this is generally a good thing) unless specific conditions of possible danger are met. Basically, you have to already be a felon who’s charged with another felony. (It’s a few cases in the last couple years where someone was released on bail due to the constitutional requirements and then went on to commit another crime that prompted this.) But it is possible to be bailable and still be stuck in jail because you can’t pay bail.
So the amendment would change the constitution so that bail can be denied if a prosecutor can convince a judge that bail would pose a threat to the general population. On the other hand, it also changes the law so that you can’t be stuck in jail just because you can’t pay bail.
I think it’s probably a good change, but I haven’t seen any real good analysis either way.
I don’t know if it is coincidence or not but the insurance companies have outspent the yes-on-69 (Colo) campaign by 5 to 1 and the Noes are in the majority of 65%-70%.
Virginia has one to keep labor union membership from being a condition of employment and one to exempt surviving spouses of first responders killed in the line of duty from property tax.