We’ll have some substantive posts up on the ballot questions shortly, but first I want to offer a quick thought on process.
Some folks take the view that ballot questions are generally a bad idea, and automatically either vote “no” or leave the question blank because they believe that government-by-ballot-initiative undermines our representative democracy. That’s a valid position and leads to an interesting debate.
However, I’d suggest that there are certain issues as to which that position doesn’t work, and an issue like question 2 (fusion voting/cross-endorsement) is one of them. Other examples that quickly come to mind are clean elections or other campaign finance reforms, and term limits.
I’m talking about issues that bear specifically on the process by which incumbents retain their seats. Unlike some ballot initiatives — like questions 1 and 3, both of which are policy matters that the legislature is competent to handle in its usual way (though some may disagree with the outcome on those matters) — question 2 directly affects elections. That means it relates directly to every legislator’s ability to stay in office. And that means that question 2, like other campaign-related issues, bears too directly on every legislator’s self-interest to be reliably left to the legislature.
Question 2, in other words, is the kind of issue that should be decided by ballot question, regardless of what one thinks about resolving matters like questions 1 and 3 through the initiative process. So vote “yes” or “no” on the merits, but don’t blank it, and don’t vote “no” just because you think resolving legislative matters through ballot initiatives is generally a bad idea. In this case, it’s not.
I’ve probably been one of the most vocal opponents to ballot questions here, but the one exception I make is for things that do change the nature of how we elect and regulate office holders. This is exactly the kind of thing that ballot questions should be used for.
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That said, I’ll be voting against question 2. I’m not convinced that it will help in any way and I’m concerned that it will cause confusion. Even with a question like this you have to convince me that a change is needed, otherwise I vote for the status quo.
But this isn’t even close to the best solution, in my opinion…
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No on #2
There really is no need for this kind of change – especially looking at this from a progressive point of view. The last few elections we’ve done a very good job electing good progressive candidates to the state legislature.
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There are reforms that could change elections for the better (IRV and Campaign Finance reforms come to mind), but this is not one of them. Indeed, I believe that it would make thing worse in Democratic Primaries in this state, and that’s where the elections REALLY matter here.
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David is right that we should not skip this question. I belive we should vote NO.
………should read the primer on fusion recently-released by the Brennan Center for Social Justice.
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If you’re satisfied with Massachusetts politics and the state legislature, then you should vote “No” on 2. If you believe that progressives need an additional tool to force certain issues to the forefront of political debate, pressure the Democratic Party (and the overall political process) and hold “the” party accountable, I urge you to vote YES.
You should only vote YES if you think this is the right tool and that voting for it will not make it less likely to pass more useful reforms.
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I really don’t think this cuts it. I am voting NO.
I think it could confuse too many voters and the impact of the change is minimal.
…at the Patriotic Pulse.
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I cross-posted on the Question 2 website, but I thought I’d link to it from here as well. I just think the author does a good job of representing how Question 2 might allow independent third parties to grow over time.
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why the impact would be minimal?
the major impact would be to allow the same person to appear on the ballot under various party lines. The “parties” that cross-endorse end up being mainly sub-sets of the major parties, so it doesn’t really change the two-party system appreciably. Anyway, it should be up to those supporting change to show that the impact would be significant.
I voted absentee a couple of weeks ago at my town hall (I knew I’d be doing politics that day.) After voting for Deval and all, I was caught by surprise with the ballot questions. While I knew the issues, I had not yet formed a complete opinion and so, I voted like most voters–on a whim.
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On question 1, I could not decide who I hated more…the big supermarket chains that would benefit from a Yes, or the liquor distributors who want to keep their monoploy. So I blanked it.
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I was annoyed by the tactics of pro-Question 3 folks–“help the children” when it was helping the unions. So I voted no based on their deceptive tactics (that I saw).
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Then I had a pain of guilt in voting no for a “liberal” question 3, combined with the fact that I voted against Rand Wilson for Auditor (Rand is the force behind question 2 and I voted against him because I did not want his party to get 3%–assuming Jill Stein gets 3%–thereby creating 2 left of Dem offical parties against 1 Republican party).
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So out of a convoluted guilt, I voted yes on 2. No substance driving my decisions on the ballot questions–just emotion.
There already are several left-of-center political parties in Massachusetts, namely Democratic, Green, and Working Families, for three. The ‘3% of vote’ changes how the Party must organize, and who may sign its nominating papers, but not their legal existence or OCPF or FEC financial constraints: Right now a Green candidate appears on the ballot as “Green” or “Green-Rainbow”, not as “Independent”.
Thank you for explaining in an honest way how we ALL arrive at these decision.
automatically on questions they aren’t sure about, as a way of expressing disapproval of ballot questions? It’s an interesting thought, because where I am the idea seems to be that people are inclined to vote “yes” on ballot questions (which are constitutional amendments: there is not provision for initiative petitions for statute laws). It could also be that people here tend to blank any amendment they are unsure of, so that it is mainly the supporters who actually vote on the amendments. We also have amendments proposed by the legislature: their big one this year is an attempt to require that amendments proposed by citizen initiative (but not those proposed by the legislature) to get at least 60% of the vote in order to pass.