AP Photo/Tony Dejak
Tuesday's elections didn't garner much attention within the Beltway, or from voters themselves, as illustrated by the abysmally low turnout levels across the country. But there was plenty hanging in the balance during this off-year cycle, mostly through a vast spectrum of different ballot initiatives.
There was some good, a lot of bad, and some downright ugly.
The Good
The big winner was good government reform. In Maine and Seattle-quite literally from coast to coast-voters approved groundbreaking measures that work to curb the influence of big money and special interests and empower small donors. Maine voters passed Question 1, which bolsters funding to the state's Clean Election program, increases transparency of outside spending, and enhances enforcement of campaign-finance violations.
Seattle voters approved the Honest Elections initiative with 60 percent support. The measure creates a public campaign-funding system that gives residents $100 "democracy vouchers" to give to candidates while also strengthening campaign-finance restrictions.
Redistricting reform also scored a major victory yesterday. Ohio overwhelmingly passed an initiative that restructures the state's redistricting process from a hyper-partisan process to one that requires bipartisan cooperation. Such reforms work to reduce the political gerrymandering of districts, of which Ohio has plenty.
Additionally, in San Francisco, voters approved a proposition that will crack down on secret lobbying by increasing disclosure requirements. Advocates said the measure was an attempt to curtail the practice in which companies like Airbnb would fund outside groups to do their lobbying.
The leftward movement of America's cities continued apace. In Salt Lake City, voters elected Jackie Biskupski, an openly gay Democrat, as their mayor. Democrat Joe Hogsett was elected mayor in Indianapolis. By the Prospect's count, that means 26 of America's 30 largest cities will have Democratic mayors come January.
For more on how cities and states are getting proactive on campaign-finance reform, read my feature from the Prospect's fall issue.
The Bad
There were a number of measures across the country that would have unilaterally increased wages for workers. But yesterday was not particularly good day for the labor movement. Most all of the labor initiatives failed. Why? A lack of strong organizing, and maybe a touch of overzealousness.
In September, the city council in Portland, Maine, increased the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. But Fight for 15 supporters wanted to take it further, pushing to get a measure on the ballot that would gradually increase the minimum to $15. Opponents, mostly from the business community, sounded the alarm that the increase would be too much, too fast. And in one of the clearest rejections of $15, 57 percent of voters denied the increase. The initiative's failure could give credence to those who argue for a more nuanced approach to minimum-wage increases, with a focus on local economies rather than a one-size-fits-all movement.
Tacoma had two dueling (and rather confusing) minimum-wage initiatives on the ballot. One called for a $15 minimum wage for businesses that brought in more than $300,000 in annual revenue. The second, more modest, measure (which was backed by the city council) called for a gradual increase to a $12 minimum for all workers in the city. Ultimately, more voters approved the across-the-board $12 minimum than the selective $15, so $12 it will be.
In Spokane, on the other side of the state, voters also rejected an ambitious measure that would have established a workers bill of rights-a minimum-wage increase, equal pay for equal work, wrongful termination protections, and giving workers rights precedence over corporations. Resoundingly, 62 percent of voters opposed the plan. The initiative's backers blame a well-funded opposition campaign orchestrated by local businesses.
However, the measure appears to have lacked robust support from organized labor and a strong organizing infrastructure.
To put salt in the wound of the failed ballot measures, Tea Party conservative Matt Bevin beat labor-backed Democrat Jack Conway for Kentucky's governorship. Unions had thrown their political weight against Bevin because he has pledged to turn Kentucky into a right-to-work state and threatened the state's Medicaid expansion under Obamacare. Kentucky is one of the two remaining Southern states that are not right-to-work. Bevin's path to pass such legislation, however, will be more difficult since Democrats were able to maintain their control of Kentucky's House of Representatives.
The Downright Ugly
Religious conservatives came out in droves in Houston to overturn a nondiscrimination ordinance that protected the rights of the LGBTQ community, thus killing the strongest such protection in the South. As Adele M. Stan wrote yesterday for the Prospect, conservatives used fear-mongering-posing the whole thing as "disturbed" men being allowed to use women's restrooms-to build opposition to the ordinance. "While not the most nuanced approach," Stan writes, "the right-wing bathroom barrage was ingenious in using fear to obscure the range of hatreds it represented."
While it may be tempting to see yesterday's election as a sneak peek at what to expect in 2016, turnout is always low (except for older, whiter conservatives) during off-years. And the failures of the minimum-wage initiatives is not necessarily a condemnation of the Fight for 15 movement, but rather a reminder that strong on-the-ground organizing around such measures is crucial. Getting a measure on the ballot is one thing; generating support on Election Day is wholly another.
