Here are our opinions on the ballot questions for Tuesday.
- We support Question 1, allowing supermarkets to sell wine. We’ve yet to see a convincing argument why they shouldn’t.
The danger to mom-n-pop liquor stores is vastly overstated. As is the case in many other less tradition-bound states, specialty wine stores will continue to exist because they offer selection and services supermarkets cannot match. Capitalism is not a zero-sum game; a bottle of wine bought at a supermarket does not necessarily mean a bottle of wine not bought at a liquor store. In any event, it’s not up to the liquor stores to tell us we have to buy from them.
In fact, this measure may increase consumption of wine, which as we recently found out, is not such a bad thing at all — and would be endorsed by The Editors even if the scientific evidence were less compelling. Raise a glass to question 1.
- We support Question 2, which introduces the futuristic sounding “fusion voting”. No, this is not voting for Jaco Pastorius vs. Chick Corea. It simply means that small parties can get on the ballot and endorse candidates who just happen to have been endorsed by major parties as well.
The argument that this causes confusion cuts no ice with us. People in New York State seem to get along just fine. (Interesting fact: Bill Weld’s chances to get on the ballot for Governor of New York were hurt pretty badly when he didn’t get the Conservative Party’s endorsement. Take that for what it’s worth.)
This measure would introduce some new faces and “brands” to the ballot; indeed the measure is being pushed by the Working Families Party, a liberal group that vets candidates based on a particular agenda. If you’re a Dem and don’t support strong health care reform (for example), you don’t get their imprimatur. So WFP’s endorsement actually means something substantively, unlike … say … many Democratic endorsements in Massachusetts.
Furthermore, the specific vote count under a third party’s label might quantify the amount of support there is for a particular agenda. If a candidate got 2,000 votes under the WFP (for example) line, then they’d know exactly how much the WFP’s agenda matters.
Naturally conservative groups would form small parties as well. One can envision a Taxpayer’s Party or Right-to-Life Party. And why not? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Bottom line: Fusion voting is not confusing; it’s benign at worst, and at best gives folks more choices in the voting booth. Hey, why not?
- Question 3: We don’t really agree on question 3, which would allow child care workers who get vouchers from the state to unionize.
- Charley says: It really kills me to go against labor, and the cute kids on the websites, and the care providers … Seriously. But this is actually a ferociously complicated issue, not a slam-dunk for better or more widely-available child care, or even for better wages and health benefits. While it seems to be true that child care workers don’t get reimbursed adequately via vouchers from the state, it would seem that forcing the state into collective bargaining for those vouchers would indeed use up the available funds faster, making child care less widely accessible. Furthermore, there are other, potentially more effective and more appropriate organizing tools available to family child care providers to improve working conditions.
We should have a discussion about making child care more widely available and improve benefits and wages, but enacting subtle and far-reaching legislation like this seems a bit much for a ballot initiative. Let’s let the legislature and a hopefully progressive governor handle it, with care.
- Bob says: if child care providers want to join a union, the state should have to negotiate with it, just like any employer. Vote yes on question 3.
- David says: I’m generally with Charley on this one. Some issues don’t lend themselves to being resolved by ballot question, and Question 3 is an excellent example of that. The issue is complicated, and the ramifications are difficult to tease out and require a far deeper understanding of how the state-supported child-care system at issue works than most voters — including the three of us — can hope to have. Moreover, the fact that this whole thing is underwritten by a single union (the Oct. 20 OCPF report for “Campaign for Our Children’s Future” shows a beginning balance of $443.19, and receipts of $750,000, in the form of two donations from SEIU in Washington, DC), which obviously expects to become the exclusive representative, makes me a tad uneasy — is it really for the children, or is it instead for the union? At the end of the day, although I understand Bob’s position and generally agree that people should of course be able to form unions if they want to, I’d prefer to see this worked out through the legislative process rather than by ballot initiative, because I just don’t think we the voters have enough information. So I’m voting “no.” Leaving this one blank is also an acceptable option — and note that enough blanks will result in the measure failing, since in order to pass, an initiative must be approved not only by a majority of the “yes” or “no” votes, but also by at least 30% of the total votes cast at the election (including those that blanked a particular question).
It will force candidates to pander to extremists on both sides. It will effectively end moderate candidacies, by having both extremes eschew them.
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We need to try closed primaries in Mass. We don’t need more new parties. Did you know we currently have twenty-six, according to Gavin’s web site?
it would do the opposite — if the newly-formed “Loony Left Party” wants to endorse candidate X but is turned down, X can then say “I’m a real moderate — so much so that I refused the endorsement of the LLP.” Sure, X is giving up LLP voters, but may well be gaining more centrist voters in the process. And the same holds for the “Righty Wingnut Party.” It’s unfortunate that NY’s version of the RWP has ended up with so much power, but maybe that won’t happen here.
Unless they gain power, they are nothing more than a political endorsemnt, and we have them already. It’s only by gaining ballot status – typically on litmus test issues – that they make any progress.
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I ask the extremeists in my own party – would you rather elect somebody you agree with 85% of the time, or lose with somebody you agree with 100% of the time? Fusion voting will require more and more hard line positions be taken, undercutting the actual process of governance as opposed to campaigning.
I’m just a cockeyed optimist! đŸ˜‰
Actually New York Conservative Party has little power.
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Over the years, the party has drawn the New York Republicans too far to the right. That has culminated in an almost clean sweep by the Democrats of New York state offices.
Why should someone who isn’t a Dem (or Repub) decide who the Dems (Repubs) run to represent the Dems (Repubs) in an election? I can’t come up with a good reason.
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Open primaries push candidates to be more moderate because there is a chunk of “always-voters” who are moderate, tend to be Unenrolled, and therefore pull both Dems and GOP toward the middle. I’m not so sure that moderate is so great, so it doesn’t help convince me to keep the primaries open.
and we (I’m the director of the Yes on 2 Campaign) agree. Political parties should have the right to choose their own candidates.
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Question 2 does nothing to change how primaries are conducted.
They’re “political designations” – very different. Parties are those groups that have qualified to have a ballot line by running a statewide candidate that earns 3% of the vote, or which enroll 1% of the registered electorate into their political designation (whereupon they become a party).
From the SoS office:
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http://www.sec.state…
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Under fusion, how many of these WOULD garner 3%? If I can vote for Mr. Galvin’s friend Steady Sue as Natural Law Candidate, and still have her counted as a GOP primary vote – why wouldn’t I? How long would it TAKE these designations to get to 3%, thus further polarizing the electorate as Shaky Eddie of the Timesizing Not downsizing Party demands all Dems comply with the three day week or lose his seven supporters, which is OK until there IS a tight primary?
My post about political designations vs. parties was in response to Peter P’s post re. twenty-six parties……
…don’t the ‘designations’ get honorary party status for this year, since the Greens are ‘only a designation’ too?
I am 100% in favor of allowing supermarkets to sell wine (and even beer). I am opposed to question 1.
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The rub? The defintion of “supermarket” which must sell fresh or processed meat, poultry, dairy products, eggs, fresh fruit, produce, baked goods, baking ingredients, canned goods and dessert items. Not a full line, not a minimum square footage, not a number of registers, just one of each. Under this defeintion, every Tedeschi’s and L’il Peach and Mobil Mini Mart that sells Slim Jim and eggs and milk and sliced turkey and an apple and a pound of sugar and be hankering for a wine license. How many of these same “supermarkets” get caught selling tobacco to minors every year? And now they can sell wine too?
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Now local board of selectmen and alcohol commissions do have the final say on who actually gets the licenses. But they should need to be hearing from all the convenience stores and gas station minimarts on this one.
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In general I disapprove of legislation bt referendum, and this question is a great example. It muddies the issues and created unintended consequences, all of which tend to get vetted out in the legislative process.
I agree and will add that I don’t think it will be limited to wine only. Please. My Stop & Shop sells wine, beer, and liquor. Does anyone really think they’ll be satisfied with their other stores only selling wine?
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I also take issue with MADD being used in this campaign. The Globe said they get a fair amount of funding from Stop & Shop and were going to stay out of the argument, but there they are being used by the Yes side to say there’s no evidence that selling wine in food stores increases drunk driving.
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I guess I just have more of a problem with the way the campaign is being run than with the actual issue. And I just think it’s nutty to have the general electorate voting on basic legislative issues. Never mind voting to put discrimination into the constitution!
My reasons are: supermarkets would lose shelf space and would stop stocking something else less profitable. What product would that be, and are we going to be able to buy that product somewhere else?
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Also, liquor stores are going to have to make up their lost income somehow. They will have to raise the price of beer!! I’m not convinced that wine prices would go down, but it’s a certainty that beer prices would have to go up.
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Do you people not care about the price of beer??
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And I was wondering, how come I’ve been in gas station mini marts in this state (Athol?) that have sold beer?
In the Commonwealth, companies are limited to three liquor licenses. So Cumberland Farms or Stop and Shop can hold three (3) liquor licenses statewide. Roche Bros in Bridgewater and SuperWalmsrt in Raynham both hold liquor licenses, for example, but only two others of their locations can also do so.
Question 1 sets up a new type of liquor license for wine only (at this point) without the three per company limit.
I’m voting no on #1 for the following reasons:
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1) I don’t believe that corporate interests should co-opt the referendum process when they don’t agree with the legislature. The ballot initiative is good to have, but it really has its limitations especially when talking about nuanced issues (how many people here even understand question #3?)
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2) The new class of licenses would allow grocery stores to have more than 3 liquor licenses, but would still require liquor stores to have 3 or less. That seems like a reverse screw job.
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3) I know that beer sales would be right around the corner, since that’s the way it is in states that have this. When I was in college the easiest place to get beer was a grocery store (outside of a bar, that is); no one ever tried to buy at liquor stores.
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4) This would allow wine at Wal*Mart, at the very least the Super ones, if not the regular ones.
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5) I like the idea of regulating the rules of commerce so that small players can still compete. Limiting the effect of economies of scale isn’t “creating monopolies”, it actually prevents them.
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6) I don’t see the public clamoring for this change, I don’t see a benefit to the public if it is passed, nor do I see an adverse impact to the public if it is rejected.
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By the way, I don’t think that local board of selectmen would “have the final say on who actually gets the licenses”, at least not in an arbitrary way. If you have ten grocery stores in your town, I don’t think it’s a legally defensible position to give out just three grocery wine licenses. I’m betting you need a reason to deny one of these.
“Bob says: if child care providers want to join a union, the state should have to negotiate with it, just like any employer. Vote yes on question 3.”
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I agree with this sentiment, and I was leaning heavily towards question 3, except…the proposal on the table requires only 30% of child care providers to “want to join a union” before the union (presumably SEIU) becomes the exclusive representative at the table on behalf of those same providers. If that number were 50% I’d probably vote for this measure. But why should less than 1/3 of providers get to make a decision that affects the whole?
I haven’t yet decided how I’ll vote on Q3, but this “30%” sounds just plain wrong. Wasn’t it already discredited in a different thread here?
“Under the proposed law, these family child care providers who provide state-subsidized child care would not be considered public employees, but if 30% of the providers gave written authorization for an employee organization to be their exclusive representative in collective bargaining, the state Labor Relations Commission would hold a secret mail ballot election on whether to certify that organization as the exclusive representative.”
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Maybe someone more versed in labor law could clarify what the “secret mail ballot” is.
30% support needed to hold an election. At the election, of course, 50%+1 is needed to unionize.
is the history of this measure. Who initiated it? If this was a group of child care providers who got together and contacted SEIU requesting help in organizing, that’s a different story than if SEIU decided to target MA as a potential place to organize child care providers, and initiated the ballot measure to allow them to proceed.
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I don’t think the fact that SEIU is funding the campaign necessarily answers that question. child care workers are not on the whole a wealthy bunch, and if they wanted to organize, they would definitely need to seek both financial and political support from a well-established union.
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I’m generally biased pro-labor, but I do get a little nervous when the unions take on a life of their own rather than simply being organizations to manifest the will of their members.
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Basically, I’m for this bill if the providers themselves want it, but I have no way to assess that.
Or even letters of support to newpapers?
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Or just ads and letters from SEIU?
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Does THAT tell you what you need to know?
Often ads and whatnot are not clear on their affiliation.
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Also, how are “day care moms” supposed to fund ads? Even if the question was initiated by child care providers, it’s still being run and funded by SEIU, so I don’t know how seeing ads from SEIU would tell me who the initiating force behind this is.
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As for letters of support and the like I haven’t seen much of anything, obviously, other than on this blog. The question doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of press, especially compared to question 1.
If the moms aren’t writing them – what kind of support does this have?
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Word of mouth is VERY negative from these same providers, who as you point out, have been trapped behind a sheer plastic panel of SEIU happy shiny TV images.
It’s 30% before it’s put to a vote, but the vote for representation has to be 50%.
No more than I am an employer when I put my kids into daycare or after-school programs. I purchase services.
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The service providers’ are the employers: they have actual, honest-to-goodness employees! How many other members of the SEIU have to worry about making payroll?
I think Question #1 is a no brainer. Any liquor store owner who says they are going to go out of business because a grocery stoe can sell wine. My bet is for most liquor stores wine may be 5-10% of there sales. And most liquor stores are still going to get a good precentage of the wine sales they currently have jusr for the fact that they will have better selection then most grocery stores will have.
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I do not know enough about question #2 but from the description above it seems to really just confuse the ballot. And it is hard enough to get people to vote to begin with so why make it harder.
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With Question #3 I am completely against anything that calls for setting up a union. We have all seen what unions can do when they do not think they are getting a fair contract offer even though the rest of looking at the offer would think it is fair.
I’m voting no on all these ballot questions. To a large extent my votes have less to do with the merits of the issue and more with my growing belief that the whole iniative and referendum process has been hijacked.
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1. I agree with the premise that liquor stores will not suffer great harm if this passes. (If beer was included, it might be different) What I’m bothered by is that this isn’t, far as I can tell, the product of some grass roots movement. I don’t recall there being a great populist uprising over the fact that, darn it, we can’t by wine at Stop and Shop. Rather, it’s pretty obvious that this is an attempt by major multinational corporations to use the system, meant to give people the power to directly effect change, to gain a competitive advantage.
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2. I grew up in New Jersey and watched the NY fusion voting process. What they’ve ended up with is a system in which third-rate power brokers get to enjoy their power every election cycle. I really don’t want to see major party candidates have to go begging to some right, left, or who the hell knows hack to squeeze out another vote.
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3. This IS “a ferociously complicated issue.” More to the point, I’m not convinced that this provides any great benefit to children. It might provide a great benefit to child care providers, but I’m not sure. Ultimately, I suspect that what they say this is, and what this really is are two different things. This is better left to the legislature.
It is perfectly clear that question 1 is just a turf battle. Allowing wine sales in grocery stores probably slightly benefits consumers who live in less populated areas. Unless you believe that MA consumers will start drinking a lot more wine, this will clearly take money away from wine and liquor stores and gives it to grocery stores, but I seriously doubt that many liquor stores are going to go out of business. (Remember all the bars that threatened they were going to go out of business if the smoking ban was put in place?) However, I am concerned that my favorite small neighborhood wine shop could possibly be forced out of business by this. I am also concerned that because the profit margins for wine are so high, that my local grocery store will be taking away significant floor space from goods I want to buy and giving it to so-so mass-market wine.
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Question 2 doesn’t do anything for me. I am not convinced that it accomplishes anything and will make it less likely to introduce more useful reforms.
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On question 3, no one has yet explained the purpose of the anti-trust exemption and the issue seems to be much more complicated than some have made it out to be. Really this should not be a ballot question.
Your comments are spot on – exactly the reasons why I will be voting No on all questions.
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In addition, the only reason they’re starting with wine for question 1 is because they want a foot in the door. We all know that in a few years, the ads are going to say:
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“You can buy wine at grocery stores, but not beer or liquor. It’s unfair discrimination!”
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“Why can you buy wine at grocery stores, but not beer or liquor? It makes no sense! Vote Yes to ‘update’ our laws and permit beer and liquor sales.”
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So I despise the ads that try to patronize me and say that it’s only wine.
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Many a proponent of Wal-Mart has argued exactly the same thing. That doesn’t make it any more true.
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The economies of scale mean that if you’re not picky about your wine, then yes, it will be cheaper (both in quality and price) at grocery stores in the future than it currently is now. But for those of us who are in the least bit picky and don’t appreciate the finer aspects of Sutter Home, this question is a losing proposition.
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I say No to Question 1.
If you don’t think union workplaces are better, safer, more productive, and more efficient, then why be “blue”?
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Seriously, getting a union in will make for a better workplace with happier providers. Doesn’t that help kids?
#1 Yes
2 No
3 Yes
…but between us, we can SINK fusion voting! :>)
dbang says: “Basically, I’m for this bill if the providers themselves want it, but I have no way to assess that.”
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If you want providers to be able to make that choice for themselves, you should vote YES on Question 3.
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Question 3 gives providers the right to form a union if they choose to. As it has been pointed out several times on this thread, if enough providers sign interest cards it would trigger a secret ballot election, conducted by mail by a neutral third party. Only if 50%+1 of providers vote to form a union would a union be recognized. If providers vote no, nothing would change.
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Some news coverage has been very misleading about this, saying that “a vote no would allow providers to remain independent”. Question 3 gives providers the choice to stay on their own or join together in a union.
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You are right that this is a decision PROVIDERS should be making for themselves. If we vote no on Question 3 we deny them that choice. I am voting Yes and I hope everyone agrees that child care providers should have the chance to form a union if they want.
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CentralMassDad says: “The service providers’ are the employers: they have actual, honest-to-goodness employees!”
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Not true. Very, very few home child care providers have assistants. The vast majority work on their own, caring for children in their own homes. The state is not their employer, but because so many children in child care are paid for by the subsidy program, the state to a very large extent determines their wages. And right now the state pays barely half of providers’ typical rate for parents who pay directly.
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The way I see it, increasing the subsidy rate would lower costs for parents paying privately, because providers wouldn’t be losing so much on subsizied kids so they won’t have to charge direct-pay parents to make up the difference.
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@HR’s Kevin: The anti-trust exemption sounds scary but it’s a specific exemption ONLY for the purposes of collective bargaining with the state. Because they do not (and will not) have legal status as state employees, that exemption is the only way they can gain a collective voice. it’s the way providers were able to win their unions in Illinois and Washington and costs to parents have not increased in those states.
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They get more from the government so, in turn, they cut their rates for private pay? Call me incredulous.
1 yes
2 yes
3 yes
4 no
5 yes
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(4 was to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana and 5 was to bring the troops home from iraq.)