While America is a constitutional republic, distinct from the democracy so many believe it to be, ballot questions across the land always remind us of how different things might be if voters were asked to decide on the big issues of the day directly, rather than through their legislative representatives.
Almost everything you have seen, heard and read about this election concerns the makeup of the new congress and what it might do. But particularly in the current toxic political climate in which voters will essentially decide which party they dislike the least this time around, pure democracy will likely be more satisfying to voters. This tradition of limited direct democracy began about a century ago, the brainchild of progressives, as an antidote to the perceived corruption of public officials.
Many of these referenda regard local and state issues, such as increasing the school budget, or the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot across Virginia Tuesday that would grant a property tax exemption for certain veterans and surviving spouses of soldiers killed in action. But we have seen in very recent history how the power of the citizen initiative and ballot process has the potential to produce sea changes in public policy. Think about the stunningly fast track for legalization of marijuana and gay marriage, both driven by citizen initiatives. In Colorado and Washington, a full stop was put on the drug war in 2012 when the citizenry voted to legalize not just medicinal marijuana, but recreational purchases as well.
Make no mistake – citizens taking the reigns of the drug war from the politicians and police was a seismic event in public policy. Will more states join the revolution? And what other issues will the citizenry get to decide for themselves this election?
There are a total of 146 statewide ballot questions to be decided on Tuesday.
Alaska, Florida, and Oregon voters will all get to choose whether their state continues to criminalize marijuana*. In Florida, the Right to Medical Marijuana Initiative would amend the state’s constitution by offering civil and criminal protections to patients and doctors who use the drug to treat a “debilitating medical condition”. Polls on the measure seems to be running about 50-50, so it may well be defeated because an amendment to the state’s constitution requires a 60% supermajority.
Both Alaska and Oregon will vote on legalizing pot for recreational purposes. These models are similar to Colorado, treating marijuana like alcohol with respect to legalization and regulation. Both measures include the assignment for regulating pot to alcohol beverage regulators, and generally allow those over 21 to possess and use it.
Five states – Alaska, Arkansas, Illinois, Nebraska and South Dakota – will vote on dismissing all employees not worth a higher wage. OK, that’s not actually the language of the initiatives, but that would be the effect of ballot questions on raising the minimum wage. Illinois is going for the highest dollar amount at $10, even as that state’s economy serves as the poster child for failed leftist governance with its seemingly chronic low growth, high unemployment and over $100 million in unfunded pension liabilities for public union employees.
On the RTKBA (right to keep and bear arms) front, both Alabama and Missouri have initiatives that bolster gun rights, including making new gun laws subject to more stringent judicial review. Both of the measures are supported by the NRA. In Washington, the state has duelling initiatives, one promoted by gun rights supporters and the other by gun control advocates. The issue there is additional background checks on firearm transfers that are not currently mandated by state or federal law. One measure would require them, and the other would disallow them. What happens if both measures pass?
“[W]e asked the state attorney general’s office what happens if they both pass. We were told: “A court might give effect to the measure that receives more ‘yes’ votes than the other one.”
That’s one possibility, but to sum up the lengthy email we got, the office frankly doesn’t know. Right now. the initiative with more background checks has a little more support. One of the other possibilities is the legislative could pass a whole new bill resolving the differences within two years of both initiatives passing.”
Democracy – nobody said it wouldn’t be messy!
Another national issue that will be put to the test locally is fracking (hydraulic fracturing), the drilling technique that has opened up vast supplies of natural gas. It will be on the ballot in about a dozen cities and counties.
According to ballotpedia.org, an indispensable website for data on ballot initiatives, the average price per signature for placing an issue on the ballot was $3, with the high this year, at $8.36 per signature, spent on the measure to require genetically modified food to be labelled as such in Oregon.
Ballot questions in last two years have resulted in major cultural and legal shifts in various laboratories of democracy – the states – and while similar sea changes are not likely this year, one can reasonably expect that a disgruntled electorate may well become increasingly amenable to settling more and more major questions themselves rather than trusting them to a federal government crippled by partisanship and gridlock.
*The District of Columbia will also have a marijuana initiative on its ballot, but because of the D.C. charter, it will not have the same force of law as the various state initiatives.
