Depraved Right-Wing Attack Efforts Go Down in Flames

By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted November 7, 2008.

Howard Jarvis must be spinning in his Hollywood Hills grave. Exactly 30 years after the California Republican spearheaded Proposition 13, the landmark ballot initiative that slashed property taxes in the Golden State and heralded the Reagan Revolution, voters on Tuesday rejected every major tax-cutting initiative put before them. In Massachusetts, Oregon and North Dakota, attempts to cut income and corporate taxes at the expense of state budgets went down in flames. On the night Democrats took back the White House and expanded their Congressional majorities, voters also repulsed right-wing attacks on reproductive and labor rights in California, Colorado and South Dakota.

There were also setbacks. In Arizona and California, gay marriage was banned; in the latter's case, the vote overturned a state Supreme Court decision. Also in California, the failure of Prop. 5 delayed the expansion of drug rehabilitation at the expense of criminalization for nonviolent offenders. In Arkansas, legislation was approved that restricts gay adoption and fostering. In Nebraska, a state that is 94 percent white, affirmative action programs were brought to an end. As of this writing, it is still uncertain whether this will also be the case for the more diverse state of Colorado.

But the 2008 initiative scorecard totals more victories than failures, and it reflects the same broad political sentiment in the country in favor of progressive change that was expressed in the election of Barack Obama. From coast to coast, voters passed progressive initiatives and referenda addressing everything from drug policy reform to alternative energy. But the biggest winner of the night was health policy: Five states approved important health care measures, from stem cell research and medical marijuana legislation in Michigan to long-term care and assisted suicide in Washington.

"Despite the lack of an overarching national narrative, there were a slew of ballot victories for progressive causes," says Kristina Wilfore, director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. "It was a fairly big victory overall."

Although only 24 states allow for the increasingly popular option of "direct democracy" through ballot initiatives, nearly 70 percent of the U.S. population lives in a state or city that allows citizens to bypass state and national legislatures. These laws are of course subject to reversal by court ruling, but more than 2 out of 3 initiative reforms stick on average, moving the chains forward in front of cautious lawmakers fearful of perceived political ledges and third rails. Based on the economic initiatives that have dominated the last two cycles -- minimum wage and health care -- the ballot initiative appears to be swinging back in the direction intended by the progressives who conceived the idea at the turn of the last century.

"Voters in the early 20th century used (initiatives) to increase spending on public schools and welfare, progressive acts in the face of legislatures dominated by conservative interests," says John Matsusaka, author of For the Many or the Few: The Initiative, Public Policy and American Democracy.

As the number of initiatives and referenda placed on ballots across the country continues to grow, it can be easy to lose track of what was approved and rejected. Below is a brief rundown of some of Tuesday's ballot initiative highlights.

Reproductive Rights

Anti-abortion rights groups had tried to get abortion restrictions placed on the ballot in seven states, but only three made it. All were rejected. Colorado's Amendment 48 would have defined "personhood" as beginning at conception; California's Proposition 4 would have required parental notification for abortions involving minors; and South Dakota's Measure 11 would have established a state legal challenge to most cases of abortion, which proponents had hoped to bring before the Supreme Court to force a revisiting of Roe v. Wade. In Colorado, failure was compounded by damaging intra-movement warfare, with the national board of Right to Life booting the state chapter from the organization for insubordination.

See more stories tagged with: election 2008, ballot initiatives

Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance journalist.

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