Pshaw. Here in the People’s Republic of Bezerkeley we’re voting on a constitutional amendment to eliminate corporate personhood. Note that this is a city measure. Like Berkeley’s much vaunted Nuclear Free Zone, I’m sure it will have a truly massive impact on the country at large :D.
Couldn’t we just … you know … fly over you?
Wait, does that mean that corporations couldn’t contract with the city? Could they even be taxed? Assessed fines? That could be a lot of fun! (For certain “some-men-just-want-to-watch-the-world-burn” definitions of fun, that is!)
Meanwhile, in Arkansas…
1)we are voting on whether alcohol sales should be allowed statewide. Yes, we have dry counties. No, alcohol tax revenue is not only distributed to wet counties, why do you ask?
- we have a choice between ending term limits or barring members leaving the state legislature from immediately taking lobbying jobs. No, we can’t have both, are you crazy?
The other two were not as insane. One that would require state agency decisions to undergo ‘final approval’ by the legislature, the other upping the state minimum wage.
I voted against everything except the minimum wage increase.
I’d like to buy beer where ever I go, but if a bunch of Baptists in Tull want to forbid alcohol sales, however stupid, it is where they live. Wish I’d known about alcohol tax revenue, Stonebow.
Nothing to see here but sweet Mary Jane.
Here in Mississippi, we are voting on an amendment to the state constitution that would enshrine hunting and fishing as constitutional rights. I bet it passes.
New York State has three of them. The first is a “non partisan redistricting” law that sets up a 10 member panel to set congressional districts, appointed by the legislature, and whose maps the legislature can change if they feel like it.
The second changes the law so that instead of sending paper copies of bills to state legislators’ offices, they can e-mail digital copies.
The third is a bond issue that gives money to schools so they can buy iPads for the kids or something like that.
That is damned convenient for the legislators. 
Virginia is voting on a constitutional amendment to allow the General Assembly to enact property tax exemptions for the principal residence of surviving spouses of servicepersons killed in action. Not “wacky,” I guess, but unusual.
That *might *make sense, depending on who does the appointing. If it’s the city counsel or some committee, that sounds alright. If it’s the mayor or any other one person, not so much.
Next door to you here in Lakewood, we just had the county-level ones, which were mostly just bureaucratic details of how the county government is run. But one was interesting: There was a measure officially recognizing a right to vote, and empowering the county to fight back against vote-suppression efforts. The “no” argument pointed out that it’d probably be challenged as unconstitutional in the courts, to which I say good, make the opponents stand in the sunlight of popular view. It looks like it’s passed overwhelmingly.
Fretful Porpentine, Montana had one of those “right to hunt” measures a few years back, too. It also passed.
I’m particularly bummed that Prop 45 didn’t pass here in CA, especially given that it had enjoyed overwhelming public support earlier last summer. Had it passed, it would have given our insurance commissioner the power to unilaterally reject health insurance rate hikes.
Cue the endless demagoguery & insurance industry campaigning, and it went down in flames.
I just want 2016 to get here already so that I can vote yes on our single-payer ballot initiative, which supposedly is going to be there.
I had forgotten about those ones. Thanks to a referendum spearheaded by Tim Eyman (a man who apparently makes his living by drafting and promoting anti-tax referenda) which passed in 2007, state law requires that every time the legislature either passes or abolishes a tax, there must thereafter be a ballot question about the change.
This vote is completely non-binding; its passage or failure does not in any way affect whether the act of the legislature goes into effect, and to the best of my knowledge none of these laws have ever been stopped from going through because the voters didn’t like it. Moreover, instead of asking the voter to mark “Yes” or “No”, the law requires that the question ask whether the change should be “repealed” or “maintained”, meaning that there are several layers of linguistic gymnastics involved in even figuring out which bubble you need to mark to vote the way you want to, not that it even matters in the first place.
This, for example, was the question on the ballot for A-8 this year;
If you can figure out what that means and how you feel about it on the first readthrough, you’re probably qualified to sit in the state legislature.
Oh, and that’s another thing - the law further requires that the ballot question specify that the legislature enacted the law “without a vote of the people” - which, you know, is kind of what legislatures exist to do.
(The voters voted for “Maintained”, for the record.)
In Tennessee, we had four(!) constitutional amendments:
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Grants the (heavily Republican controlled) state legislature the power to enact laws restricting abortion, and without regard to rape, incest, or other circumstances. The ‘No’ campaign way overspent the ‘Yes’ campaign and it was defeated soundly in the large metro areas of the state - Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga. However, it easily carried the rural bible-belt counties and passed. Countdown to new state laws aimed at shutting down clinics in 3… 2… 1…
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Codified in the constitution how state judges are appointed by elected officials, not directly elected by the electorate.
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Extended the right to hold lotteries/sweepstakes to veteran’s groups, who were accidentally excluded from an earlier law giving that right to 501c3s.
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Enshrined in the state constitution that any sort of income or payroll tax is right out. Naturally this passed by an over 2-1 majority. I guess if the economy goes south again we’ll just raise the state sales tax to 15%.
28 municipalities also voted on whether or not to allow grocery stores to sell wine (currently, they can only sell beer - you have to go to a liquor store for wine). I think it passed in all 28 places.
I’m pissy today because the wine referendum and the lotteries-for-veterans are the only votes that went the way I voted – every single one of my candidates lost (as expected). Well, I take that back - I did vote for the current Gov. Haslam to be re-elected. Because even though I can’t stand him, his opponent was a joke and every vote for governor raised the bar necessary for the constitutional amendments to pass.
I don’t even see it on the list of active petitions. Is this something the legislature is going to try to put on the ballot? I have a feeling the answer to that is, “No, as nobody wants their name on something that might be in competition with the ACA.”
The current list of California ballot measures and active petitions:
On the June 2016 ballot - gives the state assembly and state senate the right to suspend a member with a 2/3 vote of that house (right now, the options are “expel” and “live with it”).
On the November 2016 ballot - something about how non-native English speakers are to be taught English in schools, and requiring that certain state fees charged to hospitals be extended indefinitely and requiring a 2/3 vote of both houses of the legislature in order to amend.
Petitions currently being circulated: infrastructure bonds, repealing the statewide plastic bag ban, and making it illegal to use state, county, or city funds to detain or deport “any resident of California”. (A petition for a measure to split California into six states has expired without qualifying for the ballot.)
Hi Neighbor! We’re smaller, we’re weirder, we’re broke and quit being revolutionary some time ago, and we’re just a pothole between NYC and Boston.
Not so much wacky ballot question, but wacky result. For the third time since 1986, we have rejected to have a Constitutional Convention. We really need to have one here, the GA is just running roughshod over the state driving us into the ground here. The whirlwind, late into the night, 200+ bills and budget votes on the last night of the legislation session has just got to stop!:smack: