Voters Ban Gay Marriage, Back Minimum Wage
A grand total of 205 ballot measures went up for voter consideration nationwide on Tuesday. And despite all the talk about the election's being a referendum on the war, it was, in a more literal sense, a referendum on everything from stem cell research to setting up an election lottery.
Voters in South Dakota, for instance, declined to be a test case for overturning Roe v. Wade, rejecting a bill passed by the legislature that would have banned nearly all abortions. Among the most controversial of the referendums, the abortion measure failed by a solid margin–55 to 45 percent–with many voters wary that it did not provide exceptions in cases of rape or incest. "I still feel like there is a gray area in that particular matter," said Lance Weber, 49, of Sturgis, S.D. "I feel there need to be some exceptions."
The big winners of the night were initiatives to increase property rights, which passed in nine of the 11 states where they were on the ballot. Voters responded overwhelmingly to reject the Supreme Court's 2005 Kelo v. New London decision, which held that government could take private land and transfer it to another private party for economic development purposes. Thirty-one states had already restricted the government's right of eminent domain because of the decision.
The property initiatives that failed–those in California and Idaho–were two of the four that included the more-aggressive "regulatory takings" provisions, which would require government to compensate a property owner for any regulations that damaged the land's value. Opponents waged an aggressive campaign against the initiatives, which conservation and antitax groups argued would raise government expenses and hobble its ability to pass zoning or environmental regulations.
It was another grim election for advocates of gay marriage, with seven more states adding amendments banning the practice to their state constitutions. Colorado both passed its anti-gay-marriage initiative and rejected a proposal to allow civil unions that was thought to have a chance of success. Gay-rights advocates noted that the bans generally passed by narrower margins than in 2004, but Jon Davidson, the legal director for the pro-gay-rights Lambda Legal, noted before the vote, "Almost is only in horseshoes. At the end of the day, if you lose the election, you lose the election." His only real glimmer of hope was Arizona, which became the first state to reject an anti-gay-marriage measure.
As expected, all six initiatives to raise the minimum wage passed. Business groups opposed the wage hikes, especially those that tied the minimum wage to inflation, but were never optimistic that they could hold off the overwhelmingly popular measures. Democrats, including former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, hoped that the issue would bring liberal voters to the polls.
Few of the measures played as prominent a role in the elections as gay-marriage initiatives did in 2004. The one exception could be the measure in Missouri allowing embryonic stem cell research, which received national attention when actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, appeared in ads for Democrat Claire McCaskill and against Sen. Jim Talent because of her advocacy of stem cell research. The number of votes for the measure tracked closely with votes for McCaskill throughout election night, with both initially trailing and ultimately pulling ahead.
Arizona voters, who had to decide on 19 different proposals, strongly voiced frustration about illegal immigration, passing one measure to make English the state's official language and another to deny some government benefits to illegal immigrants. The measures passed even as voters unseated Republican Rep. J. D. Hayworth, one of the most strident opponents of illegal immigration.
But Arizona voters were cool to one of the quirkiest measures of the cycle, an effort to hold a drawing and award one voter $1 million in the hope of increasing turnout. Voters on ballot measures are generally risk averse, and in Arizona, despite its proximity to Las Vegas, they ultimately decided not to gamble.
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