Enough state initiatives and referendums complement the November 4th line-up that a short summary of the most important of these propositions is in order. But it’s very difficult to have an idea of how these debates might play out. Not only is there very little polling data about propositions, but voters tend to pay attention and make up their mind relatively late.
Gay marriage
The most high-profile of these votes is, of course, California’s Proposition 8. While there have been dozens of gay marriage-related votes over the years, this is the first in which voters are asked whether they want to eliminate a right that already exists. The stakes could not be higher, and a “yes” victory would set gay rights back decades by inscribing an anti-gay provision in the constitution of one of the most liberal states in the country. Polls have shown a close race, with SUSA finding a higher likelihood of passage than PPIC.
Millions have been spent on this battle. Over the past four years, $33 million combined had been spent on pro-or anti-gay marriage campaigns in 24 states; as of the most recent campaign finance filings, an outstanding $60 million had been raised by both camps, setting a new record for a ballot initiative on a social issue. (Interesting side note: Apple just made a $100,000 contribution to the “no” campaign.) The “yes” campaign (heavily bankrolled by the Mormon Church) has run ads warning voters that young children in public schools will be taught about homosexuality if same-sex marriage is not eliminated, an argument that is said to have moved some numbers. The “no” campaign, meanwhile, has been criticized for its timidity, though it appears to have gotten more aggressive - both messaging and fundraising-wise - in the past few weeks.
Two other states are holding votes on gay marriage. In 2006, Arizona became the first and only state to reject a ban on gay marriage, but its proponents got the state Senate to place the ban on the ballot yet again. In Florida, the gay marriage amendment must receive 60% of the vote to pass - a hurdle that might be high enough for the vote to fail. Florida’s amendment is broadly phrased (”inasmuch as a marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized”), and its passage would threaten the benefits of hundreds of thousands of heterosexual unmarried couples, particularly those of widowed senior citizens who would lose pension benefits if they were to remarry.
Abortion
Two years ago, South Dakota rejected a ban on all abortions, and the defeat was attributed to the law making no exception for incest, rape and the mother’s health. This time, Initiated Measure 11 allows for these exceptions but bans abortion in other circumstances. If the proposition passes, it will probably spark a legal battle that pro-life activists hope might become a challenge to Roe v. Wade jurisprudence.
Another high-profile battle is being waged in California. Proposition 4 would impose parental notification for minors and a 48 waiting period after said notification. California voters narrowly rejected similar initiatives in 2005 and 2006, but polls suggest this will be yet another nail-bitter. A smaller scale abortion proposal is Colorado’s Amendment 48, which would define “person” as “any human being from the moment of fertilization.”
Transit
Guest blogged by Yonah Freemark (The Transport Politic): Transit will play an important role in this election, with ten separate votes in five states on whether to increase taxes or take out bonds to pay for significant public transportation improvements. California’s Proposition 1a is the biggest of the bunch, proposing the biggest infrastructure project in the nation since the Eisenhower Interstate Highway program. Voter approval would mean the release of a $10 billion bond to pay for the construction of a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, expected to be a 2h40 trip on 220-mph trains when the program is complete (future expansion would eventually connect Sacramento, Irvine and San Diego to the line, bringing the total mileage to 800). This will be the first example of true high-speed rail in the U.S., though Europe and Japan have been developing these trains for the past thirty years to great popular success.
California has been officially considering developing a high-speed rail network since 1996 because of increasing road and air congestion and the overwhelming costs of upgrading and expanding highway and airport systems. The election of Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Governorship in 2003 put the project in peril because of the Republican’s relentless drive to cut the state’s ballooning budget; bond measures originally meant to be considered by voters in ‘04 and ‘06 were called off. But the Governor’s rhetoric in favor of climate protection (electric rail is far more efficient than either automobiles or airplanes) and his work with Michael Bloomberg and Ed Rendell on the infrastructure-promoting Building America’s Future campaign made it difficult for him to continue to delay the project.
Voters in Honolulu, Kansas City, West Sacramento, and Sonoma and Marin Counties in California are considering the creation of new rail transit systems. Each (with the exception of West Sacramento) ask voters to approve a sales tax increase to pay for the plans, which range from a 20-mile elevated light rail line in Hawaii to a commuter rail line intended to speed travel to San Francisco in the two Northern California counties. In Los Angeles, Seattle, St. Louis, New Mexico, and Santa Clara County in California, sales tax increases are being considered to fund expansions of current networks, including a “subway to the sea” in L.A. and the extension of San Francisco’s BART to downtown San Jose. (A more detailed discussions of all of these proposals is available here.)
Taxes
One of the highest-profile propositions in the country is Massachusetts‘ Question 1, which would eliminate the state income tax by 2010. This would cut about 40% of the state budget, forcing the legislature to immediately cut social programs and infrastructure spending and raise other taxes (particularly local property taxes). Polls released earlier in the fall suggested the vote might go either way, but a Suffolk survey released this week has undecideds massively moving towards the “no.”
North Dakota also has a tax-related proposal, although it is less dramatic than that of Massachusetts: It would cut personal income taxes “only” in half and corporate income taxes by 15%.
Labor
Colorado has been the site of some of the most chaotic initiative politicking this past year. Wealthy conservative Jonathan Coor got a “right to work” initiative on the ballot; such bills bar union shop contracts, make it far more difficult to organize a union in a workplace and lead to unions to provide membership benefits to workers who aren’t paying membership fees. Angered unions retaliated by getting four proposals of their own on the ballot - provoking panic among business forces. All of this led to union and business leaders and the governor’s office to negotiate a deal in which labor removed the four initiatives they’d gotten on the ballot in exchange for business leaders helping raise $3 million against Coor’s measure. Even without those $3 million, unions would have massively outspent proponents of the initiative - but this will make it easier.
Other
Oregon voters will decide whether to institute merit pay in the state’s education system. Colorado’s Amendment 46 (named Colorado Civil Rights Initiative) is a ban on affirmation action that could have major consequences, even though it has not attracted as much attention as its Michigan predecessor did back in 2006.
While I am a registered Ohio voter, I moved to Alberta, Canada last summer to attend grad school, and I can’t understand why gay marriage is even an issue. Canadians don’t even consider it a major political issue: gay marriage is legal in Canada and the country has yet to devolve into apocalyptic chaos, so eat that, religious right. The sooner people realize how stupid and un-American it is to deny other human beings their rights, the sooner the United States will be able to address far more fundamental issues like a broken economy, endless war and environmental degradation, which affect us all. By the way: everyone up here in Calgary is pulling for Obama.
Gay marriage is legal in Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain. spain is the largest Catholic nation, yet the country put aside its bigotry unlike America to support gay marriage. America, being one of the world’s most diversified nations, remains far more intolerant, prejudiced nation among industralized Western nations. And we claim to espouse the ideals of freedom and democracy but at the same time actively and selectively deny certain groups the rights and freedoms based almost entirely on religious intolerance and hatred. I guess America’s social conservatives/religious junkies are the bane of America’s continued existence into the next millennium.
P.S Just to get it straight, I am straight and an agnostic, and i loathe America’s religious right that is the cause of the country’s drift toward 19th century conservatism.
How about the pastor in Alberta who was fined for preaching about homosexuality directly from the Bible, or the Methodist Church in New Jersey which lost their tax exemption because they refused to marry a same-sex couple, or the closing of Catholic Charities in Massachusetts because they believe adoptions should be done by one-man/one-women married couples? Or the man in Lexington, Massachusetts who was sent to jail because he objected to homosexual propaganda being given in a public school to his kindergarten child?
Who says religious or parental rights won’t be trampled upon?
Here in Florida we voted to amend the state Constitution to create a high-speed rail network “between five Florida cities.” But it was so badly worded that a rail link between, Tallahassee, Sopchoppy, Havana, Quincy, and Woodville would have fit the letter of the law. And of course as soon as it was passed the Bushies (the Jeb Bushies) worked to overthrow it; the next election saw an amendment to overturn the high-speed rail amendment. It of course passed, with the same margins as the one to create a rail network.
So good luck to the other states in getting any high-speed rails actually built. I’ll believe it when I see it.
In Maryland, with the exception of voters in MD-01, the election will be fairly uneventful, with no state government elections, no governor elections, no senate elections, most MD representives being safe, and the presidential race being a shoo-in for Barack Obama. However, there is a statewide iniative about bring slots to Maryland. Alot of commercials from Charleston, West Virginia is show in Maryland, and proponets want Marylanders who like to play slots do so in Maryland, and the profits from slots would mainly go to public education. Those against it say that gambling is immoral and that slots would increase crime. So far, the pro-slots people have a healthy advantage in advertising, and I think most polls show 60%+ of Maryland voters approving of slots.
Bob:
Alberta is not the US. Our laws regarding religion are different, and free speech rights are more expansive here.
The “church” did not lose its tax exemption; it lost a property tax exemption on a tiny portion of a large piece of property it owns. The church owns a property of seaside land, boardwalk, and 1000 feet of sea itself, including a boardwalk pavilion. When the church refused to allow same-sex marriages at the pavilion, a state commissioner revoked the tax exempt status of the pavilion because it was not open to all citizens on an equal basis. The rest of the property (over 99%) retained the tax exemption. The church itself did not lose its exemption.
Or the man in Lexington, Massachusetts who was sent to jail because he objected to homosexual propaganda being given in a public school to his kindergarten child?
I googled the incident, and the man was not “sent to jail” because he objected to the curriculum. He was arrested when he refused to leave the school until his request to exclude his son from the activity was granted. So the problem wasn’t with the content of the objection; anyone who refused to leave school grounds in such a manner would have been arrested.
or the closing of Catholic Charities in Massachusetts because they believe adoptions should be done by one-man/one-women married couples
Catholic Charities didn’t “close.” They stopped the adoption component in their work because it conflicted with state anti-discrimination laws. Admittedly this is a tougher issue than the others, but it would have been relatively uncontroversial had the issue been racial discrimination (which has been a part of some US church tenets).
Who says religious or parental rights won’t be trampled upon?
When you look at these incidents, there’s really very little–if anything–there. Parents don’t have the right to stay on school property and refuse to leave. Religious organizations don’t have the “right” to a tax exemption (Bob Jones University gave up its tax exemption so that it could enforce its racial segregation code).
Religious groups that don’t want to recognize same-sex marriage don’t have to. People can get “divorced” while observant Catholics get a religious “annulment” to satisfy the dictates of their beliefs. Just because the state allows certain forms of union (and disunion) doesn’t interfere with the ability of those of faith to make up their own minds about these matters for their own personal purposes.
This country ha too many freedoms that it seems you have to choose one or trample one with an amendment: either please the religious and social conservatives with fredom of religion (and in the process impose the groups’ values on nonbelievers or other believers) or the right to liberty and security, thus allowing gays to determine their destiny without the crazy dictates of others as though religious beliefs and freedom trump human rights and that you must control gays and people who practice abortion like cattle.
either please the religious and social conservatives with fredom of religion (and in the process impose the groups’ values on nonbelievers or other believers)
The idea of freedom of religion does not require the parenthetical of imposing religious values on all; in fact, it’s the opposite because we don’t allow government to impose religious beliefs on all. It’s freedom of religion along with no government-sponsored establishment of religion.
Freedom of religion means people can believe what they want to believe. And believers can urge people to conform to their own idea of moral good and social behavior. What the First Amendment prohibits is using the government to require or induce people to act that way. Freedom of religion protects people’s rights to effect social persuasion while restricting their use of government force to mandate it, thereby preserving the ability of each to believe as he or she wishes.
Additionally, in the Catholic Charities care in Mass, Catholic Charities was a state contracted provider of adoption services. They simply lost their contract. They were not forced to close down, nor were they forced to cease adoptions. They simply no longer received state funds to support their adoption service.
High speed rail in California would be ‘nice to have’
Unfortunately, it requires a 2/3rd majority in both houses to raise taxes to pay for it
We can’t raise taxes in California
Even, Arnold wants to raise sales taxes to handle our increasing budget deficit
But, we can’t get it past the republicans in the Legislature
In that environment, it’s hard to vote for a huge bond measure that will likely be financed wiht money taken from education
Great idea, bad timing
Eliminate the 2/3rd budget requirement, first
You forgot what future generations may consider the most important ballot proposition of all this year - California’s Prop 2, which would eliminate the most inhumane conditions currently endured by farm animals. If it passes, Prop 2 might finally start a nationwide trend to eliminate the horrific animal abuse that is undertaken in the name of cheap meat, eggs, and dairy, and which also imposes a severe strain on the environment.
Of all the senseless cruelties our society perpetrates, the treatment of farm animals is by far the largest in scale, and the least ethically defensible. It’s time to start taking the fight to end factory farms seriously.