Ballot propositions, initiatives, and such thread 2024, *** confirmably officious ***

IronWing said:

What's taking up pages and pages on your ballot this year?

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Ranked-choice voting took up a lot of space for State of Oregon. I voted No.

Ranked choice

I wish we could have ranked choice voting to dispel the whole idea and concept of "spoiler candidates".

West Virginia Amendment 1, the Prohibit "Medically-Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia, and Mercy Killing" Measure, is on the ballot in West Virginia as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on November 5, 2024.

A "yes" vote supports amending the West Virginia Constitution to prohibit people from participating in "the practice of medically assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing of a person."

A "no" vote opposes amending the West Virginia Constitution to prohibit people from participating in "the practice of medically assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing of a person."

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I'll be voting no since I may end up in an accident or with some horrible disease which leaves me in pain 24/7 without a way to ease the suffering. I also support anyone who would want to do the same. This is also another example of religion being forced on everyone like the abortion ban. I firmly believe in the freedom of religion and the freedom from religion.

BurnItDwn said:

I wish we could have ranked choice voting to dispel the whole idea and concept of "spoiler candidates".

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The problem is this is for federal elections and state elections and it would remove all party labels from all ballots. With the level of ignorance in America, I want it to be kept simple with labels. Democratic = yes, maga/republican = no

Maryland adding reproductive rights to the state constitution

We've got 7:

1. Remove University regents from state constitution
2. Remove potentially offensive terms from state constitution
3. Prohibit slavery and indentured servitude, including prison labor
4. No tax on diapers
5. Open primary/ ranked choice combo
6. Abortion rights in state constitution
7. Mandatory voter ID

I voted yes on 6 of the 7.

APU_Fusion said:

Ranked-choice voting took up a lot of space for State of Oregon. I voted No.

Ranked choice

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Why would you vote no for ranked choice voting? You like people to be able to win with small fractions of the vote?

Edit: I see you already answered this. It is weird they'd remove party labels for ranked choice.

sactoking said:

We've got 7:

1. Remove University regents from state constitution
2. Remove potentially offensive terms from state constitution
3. Prohibit slavery and indentured servitude, including prison labor
4. No tax on diapers
5. Open primary/ ranked choice combo
6. Abortion rights in state constitution
7. Mandatory voter ID

I voted yes on 6 of the 7.

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What is the goal of no university regents? Can't say that is ever something I've given much thought to, but seems like it could give a governor even more power over universities.

Zorba said:

Why would you vote no for ranked choice voting? You like people to be able to win with small fractions of the vote?

Edit: I see you already answered this. It is weird they'd remove party labels for ranked choice.

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I wouldn't be surprised if someone got the no labels thing thrown on as a poison pill to sink it.

Oklahoma was pretty light this year:

1. Creating the ability for cities to create special tax zones that can sell their own bonds then tax the property owners to pay them off. - I voted no on this, because 1 we don't need more municipal debt vehicles. Also Kansas allowed crap like this and developers would sell bonds to develop a neighborhood then saddle everyone with large special tax assessments for 15+ years. I'd much rather a developer have to roll the cost of development into the property than hide it with a bond repayment.
2. Only citizens can vote - Voting no because this is already in the constitution, they are changing the wording from "Any citizen" to "Only citizens." Just stupid GOP performative crap.

My city is also trying its hand at General Obligation Bonds for the first time. Would raise my property taxes 15% with about 70% to add lanes to a bunch of roads to create new Stroads and sprawl. About 20% for new parks or major park upgrades. And 10% to replace one firehouse at what seems like a crazy high price. I voted yes for the parks but no for the stroads and firehouse.

Zorba said:

What is the goal of no university regents? Can't say that is ever something I've given much thought to, but seems like it could give a governor even more power over universities.

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It doesn't eliminate them, just removes them from the state constitution.

The argument is that by removing the regents from the constitution they are subject to more legislative oversight. As it currently stands, allegedly, the regents ignore most legislative requests and mandates.

The flip side argument is that removing them from the constitution makes them more susceptible to outside influences and jeopardizes the academic independence of the schools.

1. This measure would repeal or prohibit certain laws and regulations that discourage natural gas use and/or promote electrification, and require certain utilities and local governments to provide natural gas to eligible customers.

(Earlier this year, the Washington Legislature passed a law that regulates Puget Sound Energy (PSE), a large utility that provides gas and electricity to customers. That law is known as the “Washington Decarbonization Act.”

The Decarbonization Act consolidates PSE’s numerous reporting and planning requirements into a single plan, which must be submitted to the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC). The plan must forecast customer energy demand and provide proposals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its operations. PSE’s plan must explain how it will transition from natural gas to electricity in a cost-effective way and how it will coordinate with local utilities when it targets an area for further electrification. In deciding whether to accept or reject the plan, the UTC must consider whether it reduces greenhouse gas emissions, meets energy efficiency targets, and results in a reasonable cost to customers.

The Decarbonization Act further prohibits PSE from offering customers rebates or incentives to buy appliances that use natural gas. Instead, PSE must educate its customers about the benefits of transitioning to electricity and the availability of rebates or incentives for energy efficient electric appliances.)


2. This measure would repeal an excise tax imposed on the sale or exchange of certain long-term capital assets by individuals who have annual capital gains of over $250,000. This measure would decrease funding for K-12 education, higher education, school construction, early learning, and childcare.

(repeals a recently enacted "capital gains tax)


3.This measure would prohibit state agencies from imposing any type of carbon tax credit trading, and repeal legislation establishing a cap and invest program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This measure would decrease funding for investments in transportation, clean air, renewable energy, conservation, and emissions-reduction.

(In essence, this will repeal WA's recent "greenhouse cap and invest" program aimed at reducing greenhouse gasses...and making money by auctioning off "allowances" over their prescribed carbon dioxide limits.)


4.This measure would provide that employees and self-employed people must elect to keep coverage under RCW 50B.04 and could opt-out any time. It would also repeal a law governing an exemption for employees. This measure would decrease funding for Washington’s public insurance program providing long-term care benefits and services.

(WA adopted a law in 2019 that established a public long term care insurance program that is commonly known as “WA Cares.” The program provides people who meet its requirements up to $36,500 (plus increases based on inflation) to pay for certain long term care services, such as nursing home care.

The insurance program is funded through mandatory contributions from most employees in Washington. Employers must deduct 0.58 percent of an employee’s wages. Participation is mandatory for most employees whether they are full-time, part-time, or temporary workers. Payroll deductions began on July 1, 2023.)

While I understand the issue with natural gas creating CO2, I'd fckn kill to have natural gas available here for heating, cooking, and hot water...I don't give 2 shits about the capital gains tax, it only affects gains over $250,000, and only applies to the sale of things like stocks, bonds, precious metals, or artwork...I've always felt the carbon cap and trade thing was bullshit. Companies are free to pollute as much as they want...as long as they buy the credits to do it...Finally, the "long term care" law isn't very popular. Takes something like 10 years of paying into it to become eligible for a one-time $36,500 payment. on the surface, it seems like a good thing, but in the end, it's just a drop in the bucket for anyone who actually NEEDS long-term care.

Democrats and Republicans support a measure on the California ballot directing revenues to cover the tremendous cost of caring for people on Cal Style Obamacare. I am voting against it. What is the point of government if it is required to fund special interests leaving nothing to serve other vital needs. Ca. has revenue issues.

BoomerD said:

1. This measure would repeal or prohibit certain laws and regulations that discourage natural gas use and/or promote electrification, and require certain utilities and local governments to provide natural gas to eligible customers.

(Earlier this year, the Washington Legislature passed a law that regulates Puget Sound Energy (PSE), a large utility that provides gas and electricity to customers. That law is known as the “Washington Decarbonization Act.”

The Decarbonization Act consolidates PSE’s numerous reporting and planning requirements into a single plan, which must be submitted to the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC). The plan must forecast customer energy demand and provide proposals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its operations. PSE’s plan must explain how it will transition from natural gas to electricity in a cost-effective way and how it will coordinate with local utilities when it targets an area for further electrification. In deciding whether to accept or reject the plan, the UTC must consider whether it reduces greenhouse gas emissions, meets energy efficiency targets, and results in a reasonable cost to customers.

The Decarbonization Act further prohibits PSE from offering customers rebates or incentives to buy appliances that use natural gas. Instead, PSE must educate its customers about the benefits of transitioning to electricity and the availability of rebates or incentives for energy efficient electric appliances.)


2. This measure would repeal an excise tax imposed on the sale or exchange of certain long-term capital assets by individuals who have annual capital gains of over $250,000. This measure would decrease funding for K-12 education, higher education, school construction, early learning, and childcare.

(repeals a recently enacted "capital gains tax)


3.This measure would prohibit state agencies from imposing any type of carbon tax credit trading, and repeal legislation establishing a cap and invest program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This measure would decrease funding for investments in transportation, clean air, renewable energy, conservation, and emissions-reduction.

(In essence, this will repeal WA's recent "greenhouse cap and invest" program aimed at reducing greenhouse gasses...and making money by auctioning off "allowances" over their prescribed carbon dioxide limits.)


4.This measure would provide that employees and self-employed people must elect to keep coverage under RCW 50B.04 and could opt-out any time. It would also repeal a law governing an exemption for employees. This measure would decrease funding for Washington’s public insurance program providing long-term care benefits and services.

(WA adopted a law in 2019 that established a public long term care insurance program that is commonly known as “WA Cares.” The program provides people who meet its requirements up to $36,500 (plus increases based on inflation) to pay for certain long term care services, such as nursing home care.

The insurance program is funded through mandatory contributions from most employees in Washington. Employers must deduct 0.58 percent of an employee’s wages. Participation is mandatory for most employees whether they are full-time, part-time, or temporary workers. Payroll deductions began on July 1, 2023.)

While I understand the issue with natural gas creating CO2, I'd fckn kill to have natural gas available here for heating, cooking, and hot water...I don't give 2 shits about the capital gains tax, it only affects gains over $250,000, and only applies to the sale of things like stocks, bonds, precious metals, or artwork...I've always felt the carbon cap and trade thing was bullshit. Companies are free to pollute as much as they want...as long as they buy the credits to do it...Finally, the "long term care" law isn't very popular. Takes something like 10 years of paying into it to become eligible for a one-time $36,500 payment. on the surface, it seems like a good thing, but in the end, it's just a drop in the bucket for anyone who actually NEEDS long-term care.

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Induction is where it's at. Almost no wasted energy. And it's healthier- a gas stove even with exhaust hood still contributes to increased risks of health issues over time.

sactoking said:

It doesn't eliminate them, just removes them from the state constitution.

The argument is that by removing the regents from the constitution they are subject to more legislative oversight. As it currently stands, allegedly, the regents ignore most legislative requests and mandates.

The flip side argument is that removing them from the constitution makes them more susceptible to outside influences and jeopardizes the academic independence of the schools.

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So, as with most things, the answer is somewhere in between. Rewrite state laws so they can't refuse those requests and mandates rather than upsetting the whole system.

Same thing I'd like to do with Sheriffs. Right now, they're almost autonomous and some feel they're above the law and they do not have to have any education or experience in police work at all. Knee jerk is to eliminate them and go with some form of county police under the county government authority. Middle road is to rewrite their oath and establish both term limits and eligibility requirements.

Plumbing an existing area for NatGas would be almost impossible. The amount of underground work would be cost prohibitive. It could be done though. Our county didn't have common water until about 2003 or 4. Everybody was on a well. Took years to run all the underground pipes, but a safe water supply was more important than NatGas.

Everybody here uses LP where the only plumbing is on the property. Course there is the big pig sitting in the yard holding it.

IronWing said:

In Arizona, we have thirteen statewide propositions on the ballot.

The heavy hitter is a citizen initiative to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. I'm not sure how it's going to work out. People are plenty pissed off with the Supremes overturning Roe v Wade but the anti-choice forces have been working overtime on spreading FUD and lying their asses off about the ballot measure.

There is a citizen initiative to go to a non-partisan, jungle primary. Overall, it looks good but there is a poison pill so bad that the League of Women Voters came out against it. The legislature would get to decide how many candidates get carried forward to the general election on a race by race basis. I'm still undecided on the one. I'm not a fan of primaries as a way to pick candidates but if we're going to have a primary, this is better than the current system. The poison pill is pretty bad though.

The other eleven propositions were added by the Republican legislature in attempt to muddle things and exhaust the voters in hopes of taking down the abortion rights amendment. They are a grab bag of border nonsense, attacks on the homeless, handing out money to first responders (paid for by a fee on defendants), and various attempts to limit the voters' ability to bring ballot initiatives. The voter information guide is 350 pages long with most of the pages taken up by the shit the legislature threw against the wall. It appears the the strategy is working with many voters saying, "screw it, I'm voting against them all", which was the intent.

Arizona also has a judicial retention law where the voters decide whether or not to keep sitting judges on the bench. This is usually proforma as the voters don't really know anything about the judges. This year, there is a push to remove two AZ Supreme Court judges who declared a law banning abortion to be valid and enforceable even though the law is from Arizona territorial days and pre-dates statehood by fifty years.

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I did a see a sign that said "protect women's health" that said to vote against it, but the text on the ballot seems pretty straightforward (moreso than usual I thought), so I think it should be a sign of people being for or against abortion in Arizona. We'll see, I have less hope than other states (Ohio, Kansas come to mind), but its definitely galvanized women voters in AZ. Then again, was leaving work tonight and I noticed a (female) co-worker's car had a 45 47 sticker on it.

That's definitely a big component of it with regards to the judges, and I've seen a bunch going "they voted in line with what the law the legislature passed" and acting like its a good thing and shows they aren't biased in their rulings, ignoring the intentional bad faith the legislature had in trying to poison attempts at getting rid of their abortion ban and of course ignore the part about how it wasn't a state when that law was made (so how it should matter to the actual state 150 years later...by that logic we're still England's King's subjects dumb fucking idiots). I think that might have blown up in their faces some as not only did it make it clear how fucking shitty they and the legislature are, it also highlights how out of touch they are that they really do think we should go back to laws from before half this country was even part of it.

But there's more to it than that. The woman has barely ruled on anything I believe, she seems to have been fast tracked by Republicans like Ducebage because she's a young white woman and a member of the Federalist Society. The guy is a good friend of Clarence (yeah, that Clarence). I was gonna research those 2 and the appeals court one. Not sure on the rest, there's too many to be able to really look into all of them and saw that the judicial review or whatever system they setup to try to make it so you can sorta do that basically didn't have data (it relies on feedback from lawyers and others that are part of the court system to provide ratings of different aspects, stuff like promptness and others). The argument about getting rid of terms because it polarizes the courts is obviously stupid and seems is rich people trying to keep their discount for paying these assholes off in private. Also, I wish I could vote the judge that oversaw the workman's comp claim of my Mom out because of some pretty unprofessional behavior (that I can't detail at this time). The more even just tangental bits makes me want nothing to do with our court systems at all.

And yeah most of the rest were right wing bullshit, and then the ranked choice voting ones were both not appealing (like you pointed out the one having the legislature decide is not a good outcome).

The race for Sheriff of Maricopa is awful. The Democrat is a Republican that switched just so he could run and destroyed ("lost while he was in Africa") his phone to cover up the sexual harassment he'd been doing to a female officer that he had been training. And the Republican was Rape-a-ok-o's right hand man while he was doing his racist shit and not investigating rapes. Which, policing down here is fucking shit. Sheriff that won the last election quit early because the police are a fucking disgrace. They're currently throwing tantrum and keep spreading lies about a disabled (Cerebral Palsy) black man that they beat the shit out of after they showed up to a convenient store after the employees called them for some piece of shit white guy that was refusing to leave after harassing people and causing problems, wherein the white guy claimed the black guy had attacked/robbed him. The store employees and other witnesses said that wasn't true, but the cops still went over and proceeded to beat the guy up while arresting him. They arrested the black man but the county attorney dropped charges after a fuss was made and they found out what happened. Bodycam footage was released recently (police immediately pulled a vehicle in front of the guy as he was walking through a parking lot, got out and start swinging on him), and there's attorneys going after the police now (latest I saw is there's a formal inquiry looking into more evidence, texts and other, and cops are probably shitting themselves as it will likely reveal lots of other shittiness by them). Head of Maricopa County Sheriff's Office I think is suspended after they posted comments saying the charges will be refiled against the black man and then spread the lie about the guy having robbed the white dude on social media.

The school board race weirdly worked out where there was a coalition that seemed on its face silly (3 that had z in their names - they literally were saying to vote for them because of that, although that's more to make it easy for people to remember and not because they're serious about voting for people with z in their names), but the other ones are "parent's rights" right wing shitheads (apparently one such is already on the board and already causing problems, so it'd give them a majority and they could really start fucking things up).

There's also a race, county assessor I believe, that should be easy, between an election conspiracy theorist and the Democrat that is a decorated military veteran running because of the election conspiracy theorists.

County attorney is between a woman that played a role in Kavanaugh hearing (I seem to remember her, she was the GOP woman they trotted out to make it seem like they actually were listening to women and then she subsquently tried to get it closed ASAP and was the reason the FBI basically didn't follow up on leads and other shit), and a younger black woman.

ALL Judges at all levels should be subject to retention requirements. Many are subject to reelection, but there really aren't public reviews of their performance to let voters know some are just really bad at their jobs.


Remember the couple who refused to sentence on rape charges because the 'boy just made a mistake'?

Notable stuff on the CA ballot like the Prop 8 repeal, state min wage increase, some bonds, limiting force labor in prison, and the AHF trying to repeal Costa-Hawkins (municipal rent control limitations)/opposing question taking aim at AHF from the housing sector.

K1052 said:

Notable stuff on the CA ballot like the Prop 8 repeal, state min wage increase, some bonds, limiting force labor in prison, and the AHF trying to repeal Costa-Hawkins (municipal rent control limitations)/opposing question taking aim at AHF from the housing sector.

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I thought some of the rent control propositions were basically poison pills to kill much of the housing reform the legislature has pushed through. Basically, rich communities could use rent control as a way to put a halt on development.

Brainonska511 said:

I thought some of the rent control propositions were basically poison pills to kill much of the housing reform the legislature has pushed through. Basically, rich communities could use rent control as a way to put a halt on development.

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Yes, the background is that a notorious rich NIMBY runs the AHF and uses the org's resources to oppose housing development. The reason he got the prop on the ballot is what you suspect: to enable rich communities to make it impossible to add new housing under the cover of insane rent control ordinances and circumvent the newer more permissive state housing laws.

APU_Fusion said:

The problem is this is for federal elections and state elections and it would remove all party labels from all ballots. With the level of ignorance in America, I want it to be kept simple with labels. Democratic = yes, maga/republican = no

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Well shit, I love ranked choice voting but removing party labels is a ricockulous idea.

K1052 said:

Yes, the background is that a notorious rich NIMBY runs the AHF and uses the org's resources to oppose housing development. The reason he got the prop on the ballot is what you suspect: to enable rich communities to make it impossible to add new housing under the cover of insane rent control ordinances and circumvent the newer more permissive state housing laws.

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Ah yes, now the dots are connected on AHF: the AIDS Healthcare Foundation - a huge NIMBY front that has become notorious on housing Twitter.