Progressive policies are on the ballot
Progressive policies are on the ballot
A guide to ballot initiatives, or the good election night news
With one day left until most voters head to the polls, the consensus from pollsters and pundits is that Democrats are likely to experience a rough Election Day.
A Republican takeover of the House seems all but guaranteed, in part due to the egregious GOP gerrymandering that Democrats failed to stop. Ditto for state legislatures. Control of the Senate, meanwhile, seems like a true toss-up, thanks largely to the GOP’s history-making slate of dead-eyed creeps, crooks, and in the case of Blake Masters in Arizona, creatures of the night.
Barring some sort of widespread polling error, it’s fair to predict that there probably isn’t going to be much progressive policy being enacted over the next few years outside of a few deep blue states can pass and Biden executive order. And so once again, any hope of substantive progressive change in much of the country is going to rest on the success of ballot initiatives.
Abortion rights is on the ballot in five states, as is some form of marijuana legalization. Those initiatives have understandably received most of the headlines, but there are plenty of other significant initiatives worth reviewing. I’ll focus mainly on city and county-wide ballot measures here, with a few unsung statewide initiatives thrown in.
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Housing
Honolulu, HI: Charter Question 1 asks voters whether the city should increase the annual appropriation given to its Affordable Housing Fund. Hawaii, which has been besieged by new hotels and billionaires buying up large tracts of land, desperately needs more affordable housing — the average single home now costs $1 million on Oahu.
This initiative would just be a small start; if successful, it would bump up funding from half a percentage point to one percent of the city budget, a jump from $8 million to $16 million. The state is also beginning to invest heavily in affordable housing, but it will take years to catch up.
Charlotte, NC: Voters will weigh in on a new $226 million bond, which would include $50 million for affordable housing. The rest of the money would go to street projects and public infrastructure. The city is short 45,000 units of affordable housing.
Colorado: Voters across the state will weigh in on both a statewide ballot initiative and nearly a dozen local measures intended to address the state’s dire shortage of housing units and warped real estate market.
Statewide, Coloradans will vote on Prop 123, which would divert 1% state income tax revenue to an affordable housing fund. Among other things, the fund would both directly pay to build affordable housing and allow the state to act as a lender for developers, who would give the government a 2% stake in the new construction in exchange for lower interest rates. Other chunks of money would go toward helping first-time homebuyers make a down payment and to combatting homelessness with housing solutions.
In Denver, Measure 305 would mandate that no resident be evicted from their homes without first being given access to legal representation; the ever-present threat of having to go to court tends to scare landlords off from unfairly evicting people. To pay for the legal representation, the city would levy a small $75 excise tax on landlords.
The tourist-heavy ski towns of Grand Junction, Steamboat Springs, Carbondale, Dillon, and Aspen will have taxes on short-term stay properties (ie Airbnbs) on the ballot, while Durango, Snowmass Village, Georgetown, and Estes Park will vote on overall lodging taxes.
Kansas City, MO: It’s the story of so many housing uprisings this year: Grassroots collective action gets under the skin of corporate Democratic mayors, who are able to stave off major changes like rent control but agree to invest more money in affordable housing (which happens to please developer donors).
Kansas City, home to one of the most active and tenacious tenants unions, will vote on an additional $50 million bond to devote to housing construction and rehabilitation.
Sacramento, CA: While the city government is increasing its investment in affordable units, it’s somewhat limited by an old California law that prevents municipalities from building low-income housing without the express consent of voters. Expressly racist in intent, Article 34 could come up for a vote in 2024, but for now, cities have to do it one by one.
Los Angeles, CA: I’m a New Yorker and not particularly fond of LA, but I have to give activists there credit for my favorite ballot measure of the year: The Mansion Tax. Should the measure pass, it would place a 4% tax on houses sold for $5 million or more and a 5.5% tax on homes sold for more than $10 million. The city estimates with the revenue going to affordable housing. The only thing that could make this better would be if it applied to all of LA County, including Beverly Hills.
Former Democratic Rep. Karen Bass does not support the tax, which I can only hope is her way of not giving Rick Caruso, the filthy rich real estate developer she’s running against, more evidence that could sway weird celebrities to endorse his campaign, as Gwyneth Paltrow and Kim Kardashian have done.
Inyo County, CA: California has no statewide law governing taxation on visitor lodging, instead leaving it up to municipalities to regulate as they (or powerful lobbyists) see fit. In tiny, arid Inyo County, there has long been an additional tax on hotels, but up until now, that tax has never applied to Airbnb and other short-term lodging properties.
Management companies have taken advantage of this loophole for years, but if voters approve Measure Q, those salad days on rentals catering to nature lovers will come to an end.
Orange County, FL: I’ve been covering the rent control fight in Central Florida all year, and right now, it remains in limbo. Progress Report ran a story on it last week with the latest updates.
Voting Rights and Elections
Multnomah County, OR: Home to Portland, the most populous county in Oregon is weighing a big change: Amending the county charter to allow non-citizens to vote in county elections — if it’s legal. The state constitution of Oregon may make this moot due to a 1914 amendment that barred non-citizens to vote.
It’s nonetheless an interesting initiative to watch because non-citizen voting in local elections is slowly starting to be bandied about in politically liberal cities and counties. Also, given that angry Oregonians may elect Republican to the governor’s mansion, I’ll be curious to see whether this one passes. May be the wrong year for it.
Culver City, CA: Residents of this LA suburb will vote on whether to extend the right to vote in local elections not to immigrants, but to 16- and 17-year-olds. If approved, high school sophomores will have the opportunity to weigh in on city and school district elections, as well as ballot measures like this one.
Ranked Choice Voting: A number of municipalities will be voting on whether to change their form of voting. As we’ve covered somewhat extensively here at More Perfect Union, the ranked choice voting movement is picking up steam, and on Tuesday, the system could see its biggest expansion yet.
The entire state of Nevada will vote on implementing RCV, as will voters in nine cities and counties. It’s on the ballot in:
Portland and Multnomah County, OR (two separate initiatives)
Evanston, IL;
San Juan County and Ojai, CA;
Fort Collins, CO;
Seattle and Clark County, WA
Lansing, MI: The fight to restore voting rights to former felons has rightly earned a lot of attention over the past six years, but there’s been comparably little coverage of efforts to repeal the bans that prevent them from holding office. In Lansing, a ballot measure would begin the work of repealing such laws by permitting former felons to hold (unpaid) seats on city boards or commissions.
Baltimore, MD: Term limits are one of those concepts that sound great but would actually only make things worse. Generally speaking, they’d reduce institutional knowledge within government and increase the influence of corporate donors and lobbyists.
If you don’t believe me, just ask yourself why the majority owner of Sinclair Broadcast Group, the right-wing local news empire, is bankrolling the initiative to have term limits enacted in Baltimore’s city government. His TV network had been running positive stories on the initiative without disclosing the massive conflict of interest, which is also not a sign of good government.
Connecticut: Did you know there’s no early voting in this reliably blue state? It’s one of only four states where that’s still the case, and the only one outside of the South. Connecticut people (what do they call them? Connecticans?) can fix their antiquated election system by approving the constitutional amendment proposed in ballot Question 1.
Workers’ Rights and Income Inequality
Minimum wage: Voters in a number of cities and states will be asked to decide whether the minimum wage where they live should be increased over time. Here’s where some of the referendum will be taking place:
Nebraska: $15 an hour
Nevada: $12 an hour
Washington, DC and Portland, ME: Ending the unequal tipped minimum wage
Duarte and Inglewood, CA: Enacting a $25 an hour minimum wage for health care workers at private hospitals.
San Bernardino County, CA: Here’s a spicy one! Measure EE asks voters to authorize local elected representatives dig into all the ways that they could ensure that San Bernardino gets its fair share of state funding — including secession from California. Not sure how they’d get more state funding by leaving the state, but these are weird times.
Arizona: For all the literal insanity that Republicans and their militias continue to inject into elections in Arizona, the state is poised to enact some pretty progress ballot initiatives.
Proposition 209 would limit the interest rate on medical debt to just 3% — the national average is 10% — and ban the government from garnishing wages from people to pay off their medical debt
Proposition 2011 would be an unprecedented victory for bringing light to dark money. It’d require independent expenditures — ie PAC money — of more than $50,000 on a statewide campaign or $25,000 on a local campaign to disclose funders that provided $5000 or more — and not the names of some money-washing LLC, but the actual original sources of that money.
Proposition 308 would allow immigrants that live in Arizona to pay in-state tuition for college. A blatantly racist and discriminatory ban on charging immigrants in-state tuition was passed in 2006.
It’s not all great in Arizona, however, as there are multiple ballot initiatives that aim to restrict voting rights and ballot measures themselves. Requiring voter ID, limiting initiatives to single clauses, and creating a 60% supermajority to pass initiatives are all on the table.
Illinois: Amendment 1 would enshrine a right to collectively bargain in the state constitution and ban the dreadfully nicknamed “right to work” law from being enacted. It’s hard to overstate the importance of such a law at time when labor unions are beginning to experience a revival that could be crushed by aggressive corporations such as Starbucks without government intervention and protection.
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