It’s tempting to over-read these odd-year elections, but that said, the forces of reason did pretty well tonight. In Ohio, a draconian anti-worker law that the Republican legislature and Governor had rammed through went down in flames as the voters rejected it handily in a referendum. In Mississippi, a so-called “personhood amendment” that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person (presumably, pregnant women would have been able to drive in the car-pool lane had it passed) was defeated. In Maine, voters reinstated same-day voter registration after their kooky Governor had previously signed a law repealing it. Interestingly, the now-repealed law that the Governor signed had replaced same-day registration with a two business day period, making our 20-day period look absurd. It’s high time we changed our rules. And in Arizona, the guy who spearheaded that state’s ghastly immigration law was successfully recalled.
Congratulations to all who worked for tonight’s good results.
Good points about tonight’s results but I think you missed a few…
From MSNBC
such as the statewide Democratic sweep in Kentucky, and the special election in Iowa that let the Dems keep control of the state Senate. I was focusing on the ones that had gotten the most national attention.
I think reelections (Kentucky’s Democratic governor) doesn’t qualify as big news.
that, of the pro-GOP news, the VA story is the biggest one. However, it pales in comparison to Ohio’s rejection of Gov. Kasich’s union-busting law, which is by far last night’s biggest news; MS’s “personhood” amendment was widely expected to pass and set up a Supreme Court test for overruling Roe v. Wade; the AZ recall was seen as a referendum on draconian immigration laws that have been national news for months and have been emulated elsewhere (e.g. AL); and the ME story is of local as well as national interest. Control of the state Senate in Virginia, while important to Virginians, does not rise close to that level, and can hardly be described as surprising. It would be awesome if Obama won VA again, but not many people thought it was going to happen even before yesterday’s results. And I didn’t even mention the recall in MI – a key swing state – in which a conservative legislator was the first successful recall victim in nearly 20 years.
Upshot: the Dems had by far a better night of it last night than the GOP. So I stand by my original post.
But not the sweep the post implies. I think the OH question was a long shot since he included Police and Fire (which Walker was smart enough to exclude). The next question will be how cities and municipalities in OH handle their budget shortfalls since the state cannot help. OH residents will get what they deserve, one way or another.
These are tough choices and Kasich took a shot at making it easier for them all to make “smart” reductions, now they will deal with layoffs, maybe substantial layoffs or large local tax increases and I’m sure Kasich will remind voters of what they voted for. But I’m ok with state referendums like this since it lets people decide what they want, unlike many people who abhor regular folks having this right and want it to be the exclusive right of their legislators.
Was disappointed, however, that the voter ID initiative passed.
For the sixth time in 11 years
The forces of reason strike again.
…indicates that control of the VA Senate is still in doubt.