From property rights to abortion, a look at the key issues being decided in referendums and initiatives on Nov. 7.
For all the money, advertising time and media attention that congressional races generate, few of their outcomes will directly impact people's lives nearly as much as ballot measures will. In addition to electing representatives to go to Washington, voters across the country will also have their say on more than 200 ballot initiatives, proposals and referendums. The topics range from the mundane, like a legislative referendum on fishing and hunting in Georgia, to divisive national issues like the referendum to reject an anti-abortion law passed earlier this year in South Dakota.
Following are a few of the ballot issues that will be eagerly watched around the nation.
PROPERTY RIGHTS:
According to the National Council of State Legislatures, property rights will be the most debated issue being decided this election season, having garnered the attention of voters in 12 states, several of them dealing specifically with regulatory taking, eminent domain and in some cases both. The issue grew large after the landmark Supreme Court decision of Kelo v. City of New London, in which the High Court found that government can take private property and give it to a development interest so long as the community can enjoy some economic benefit. The 2005 decision has since found a host of critics, who eventually built a strong enough coalition supporting owners rights to bring it to the state initiative arena.
The Kelo decision awoke a sleeping tiger, says Leonard Gilroy, a senior policy analyst with the Reason Foundation, a public policy research nonprofit. People realized their property rights werent fixed. When you look at whats happened to property rights over the last 100 years there has been a fundamental erosion of property rights. That happens all the time, and the problem is that landowners are not compensated for those impacts.
States Voting: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Lousiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington.
GAY MARRIAGE:
Close behind, and perhaps more emotionally charged, is the same-sex marriage debate. Eight states will decide on how to define marriage, whether to prohibit similar legal status, and in Colorado, create domestic partnerships. Kansas and Texas decided last year that marriage could only take place between a man and a woman. Earlier this year, Alabama passed a legislative referendum that prohibited the state from issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples, or even recognizing same sex licenses issued in other states. In 2004, a total of 13 states passed same-sex marriage bans, and the ballot measures themselves were credited with helping to boost Republican turnout in a presidential election year.
Although there were more states making this choice in 2004, the New Jersey Supreme Courts October ruling that the state must give gay couples the same legal rights as straight couples has brought more attention to the upcoming votes. But some say it wont make a difference in the minds of voters who are convinced one way or the other.
Im not sure [the New Jersey ] decision will have much impact in changing the voting, says Pamela Johnston Conover, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But she warns that how voters do choose, based on the language on the ballots, could have a far-reaching effect effect on legal rights for same-sex couples. Most of the ballots have components that go beyond the marriage issue. If passed, they have the potential to have a more wide-sweeping impact on gay and lesbian couples than the ballot initiatives that only look at same sex marriage.
States Voting: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin.
SMOKING:
Continuing an ongoing series of appearances in the political and legal arena, tobacco will again be on the minds and ballots of voters in seven states. Choices will range from statewide smoking bans to cigarette and tobacco taxes and even decisions on how to use the money won in the 1998 multi-state tobacco settlement, which are expected to amount to $246 billion over a 25-year period.
Arizona, Ohio and Nevada have the more interesting smoking ban initiatives because voters will have to choose between competing proposals. **Some are sponsored by organizations representing hotels, casinos and restaurants because they are less restrictive and accommodate gamblers who do smoke. Others are represented by health care interests. But to date, only Florida and Washington have approved statewide smoking bans. California rejected the measure in both 1978 and 1994.
Meanwhile, Florida and Idaho will be deciding on what to do with the tobacco settlement revenues. The former will choose whether or not to dedicate 15 percent of the money to a tobacco education and prevention fund. The latter would choose if the state should create a new endowment fund that would receive 80% of the settlement money and support schools and higher education and give the remaining 20% to the Idaho Millennium Fund, which will finance tobacco prevention and treatment programs.
Lastly, following the path of 15 other states, voters in four states will decide on increasing taxes on tobacco products to help benefit health care programs. If history is any guide, the proposals will pass easily. No proposed tobacco tax increase has failed to pass in any state since 1994.
States Voting: Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, South Dakota.
MINIMUM WAGE:
Six states will choose whether to create increases above the federal minimally required wage of $5.15 per hour. Each of the ballot proposals provide for an increase based on annual inflation.
The ballots will allow for raises of hourly wages ranging from $6.15 to $6.85, except in Nevada, where voters can choose to hold it at $5.15 per hour, provided the employer offers health benefits. Advocates of minimum wage increases believe that the vote could well set the precedent for a new federal increase next year, though opponents continue to insist that raising the wage will hurt businesses, and as a result, slow job growth.
Part of what is driving the initiative is that the minimum wage is at its lowest real value in over 50 years, says Liana Fox, economic analyst with the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank that focuses on economic issues. Due to federal inaction, were seeing the lowest buying power in a long time.
Fox says more than 1.5 million workers would benefit from a minimum wage increase, as well as 652,000 children, with a cost increase for businesses at less than 1%. She explains that if the initiatives passed in all six states, 70% of the U.S. workforce would live in states that require a minimum wage above the federal level. Thus, it's no surprise that candidates from both parties have aligned themselves with the issue.
You hear candidates talking about it because its such a long overdue issue, says Fox.
States Voting: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio.
ABORTION:
Abortion has only shown up on three state ballots in this year, but one of them is particularly high profile. In South Dakota citizens will vote to repeal a law passed in February that bans all abortions, except in cases where the mother's life is threatened (legislators voted against amendments that provided exemptions for women who became preganant through rape or incest). If voters choose to keep the law, challenges to its constitutionality are expected, quite possibly all the way to the Supreme Court. That is exactly what the law's backers, who want it to serve as a test case to try and overturn Roe v. Wade now that the court has two new conservative justices, had in mind when they drafted it.
Two other states are also considering abortion measures, but only to decide on requiring parental notification before an abortion is performed.
States Voting: South Dakota, California, Oregon.
MARIJUANA:
Marijuana has found a way to roll itself up in the ballot vote again. This time Nevada and Colorado will decide if an ounce of pot should be legal for personal use for people 21 and older, similar to laws in some European countries. South Dakota will consider legalizing it for medical use.
In fact, the issue has spread statewide across Colorado after an initiative in Denver was successful. If the proposal carries in any of the three states, it would push the question of across-the- board legalization to the national forefront. However, many opponents maintain that marijuana is a gateway drug to harder substances that, if pot is legalized, would easily find its way into the hands of minors.
States Voting: Colorado, Nevada, South Dakota.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION:
Finally, in what could be a major decision in a vicious fight that swept through California and Washington State in the late '90s driven by African American businessman Ward Connerly, Michigan will decide if it wants to amend the state constitution to eliminate affirmative action in public institutions for educational, employment and contracting purposes.
Behind the initiative is Jennifer Gratz, who in 1997 sued the University of Michigan for discrimination after being denied admission as an undergraduate. The case went to the Supreme Court, which found in her favor, but said that affirmative action could be be applied in education as long as schools didn't use a strict points-based quota policy. She is now executive director of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, the group that began the push for the referendum in 2003. Connerly has reportedly contributed $450,000 of the $2 million it has raised.
However, a host of organizations and individuals, from the League of Women Voters to Michigan State University basketball coach Tom Izzo, have banded together to fight the initiative. The battle could be brutal because opponents have already vowed to try to block its implementation, if the proposal is approved by voters through the court system.
Organizations and individuals are using initiatives like this to accomplish policy change, says Jeannie Bowser, policy analyst with the National Council of State Legislatures. She noted, If it passes, it may be an indication of a change in public attitudes.
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