The Thicket at State Legislatures

Ballot Measure Results

Over on Prop*50 we report the details of the defeat of the personhood measure in Mississippi, the repeal of the limits on public employee collective bargaining in Ohio and the repeal of legislative action to eliminate same day voter registration in Maine.

What to Look for in Tuesday's State Legislative Elections

by Karl Kurtz

Three states will hold their odd-year legislative elections tomorrow--Mississippi, New Jersey and Virginia. A fourth, Louisiana, ever marching to a different electoral drummer, will hold its second round elections on Nov. 19. In New Jersey and Virginia (and Louisiana) it's the first election after new districts have been drawn. Not so in Mississippi: the Legislature was unable to reach agreement on a new redistricting plan and received permission from the courts to conduct the election with the old districts.

We will be watching and reporting on possible changes in party control:

• The Virginia Senate, currently controlled by Democrats by a 22-18 margin is hotly contested. If Republicans can pick up at least two seats (the tie-breaking vote would go to Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling), they would gain unified control of the commonwealth's state government. Republicans are putting on a full court press, while Democrats are hoping that relatively favorable redistricting will help them hold off the Republican tide.
• Democrats have an eight a fourteen seat margin in the Mississippi House. Republicans hope to narrow that margin, and possibly even to take control if they can gain a net of eight seats. [Corrected, 11/8, 11 a.m.] If both the Virginia Senate and the Mississippi House were to switch party control, Republicans would control the legislatures and the governorships in every southern state except Arkansas.The Mississippi Senate, on the other hand, has a narrow 27-25 Republican margin and could conceivably switch to the Democrats. [Addition, 11/8, 12 p.m.]
• The New Jersey Senate has a four vote margin in favor of the Democrats, but 37 of 40 incumbents are running for reelection. It would be a stretch, but the numbers are close enough that a big Republcan win could switch that chamber's party control.
• And then there is Iowa's special election to fill a vacant Senate seat. With Democrats holding a two vote margin in the Senate, a Republican victory in the special election could tie the chamber and lead to a power sharing agreement like the one that was necessary after the 2004 election, the last time the Senate was knotted 25-25.

In addition to the 26 ballot measures at stake on Tuesday, there are two recall elections, one in Arizona involving the high profile Senate President Russell Pearce and the other in Michigan.

NCSL's election team will report on these state legislative races in The Thicket beginning Tuesday evening and throughout Wednesday. We will report the initiative and recall election results on our companion blog, Prop*50.

How Accurate are Polls on Statewide Ballot Measures?

by Karl Kurtz

Georgetown University political scientist Dan Hopkins looked at 438 public opinion polls on statewide ballot measures between 2003 and 2010 to determine how accurately the polls predicted the final vote. The details of the results, reported at The Monkey Cage, are a bit confusing to read, but the bottom line is that polls on raising or reducing taxes, on restricting gambling or abortion and on education or environmental matters are fairly accurate predictors of the results at the polling places.

However, polls on banning same sex marriage, restricting immigration or permitting marijuana sales all significantly underestimate the final outcome on these measures. Hopkins attributes the inaccurate results to poll respondents giving answers to survey questions according to what they think the socially desirable answer is, not how they actually cast their ballots.

See the NCSL preview of measures on 2011 ballots including today's tax increase proposal in Colorado and, next Tuesday, the much-watched Ohio vote on public employee collective bargaining, Maine's decision whether or not to repeal same day voter registration and Mississippi's proposal to create a strict photo ID requirement for voting, among other proposals.

Good Stories

The New York Times has had four stories of interest to The Thicket over the last couple of days. They include:

• A reasonably balanced profile of Alabama state Senator Scott Beason: "Outside of college football, Mr. Beason has become just about the most divisive topic in Alabama."
• A rundown on on Amazon.com's plans to launch an initiative in California to overturn that state's law requiring online retailers to collect sales taxes and its implications for other states
• A story on the declining influence of rural legislators featuring Washington Senate minority leader Mark Schoesler, the only farmer left in that state's Senate, with other references to the roles of rural legislators in Virginia, Oregon and Idaho.

Like other longtime lawmakers, representatives of rural areas in states without term limits tend to hold on longer. Those with the most longevity, and power, are mostly white men and often from states in the South, Midwest and West that have strong rural traditions, even if their populations are now more urban. They succeed in part because experienced hands are still in demand, even amid calls for change in state capitols. There can be a paradox in their power: the regions they come from are often in decline, so their seats may not be hotly contested.

“Generally, as a rule of thumb, you don’t see senior leadership coming from embattled districts,” Mr. Schoesler said. “Leaders have to do unpopular things, so you tend to see both parties look for safe seats to groom leadership in.”

• A story about a movement to establish a separate state of South California that has this nice short explanation of the history of breakaway states in California and elsewhere:

Voters Take Stands on Budget Issues

By NCSL Communications Staff

Balancing the budget could become more difficult in several statehouses across the country after Tuesday night. Generally speaking, voters on Tuesday made it more difficult for legislatures to pass tax increases, yet gave consent to programs with high price tags and no revenue stream.

Voters in Washington rejected a plan to raise $11.2 billion in revenue over the next five years and required the legislature to have a two-thirds, rather than a simple majority, to approve tax increases. California, which already has the two-thirds requirement, now must meet the same threshold to raise regulatory fees. In separate actions, California voters rejected $3.3 in potential revenue increases and restricted the legislature to take funds from transportation programs and local government to help balance the state budget.

In this video, NCSL's ballot measures expert, Jennie Drage Bowser, recaps the actions that voters took on election day regarding ballot measures, and what it might mean for state legislatures.

 

For more information and a Complete wrap-up of the 2010 election on state legislatures, turn to NCSL's StateVote 2010 website. NCSL's press release also gives an overview of all the ballot measures across the country and what action voters took on various issues.

The 2010 Election Will Shape the Political Landscape for the Next 10 Years

NCSL Communications Division

Tuesday night’s GOP power sweep exceeded expectations, giving the party its largest number of seats since the Great Depression.

Republicans now hold about 3,890, or 53 percent, of the total state legislative seats in America, the most seats in the GOP column since 1928. The GOP will now control at least 54 of the 99 state legislative chambers, its highest number since 1952. As a result, state legislatures will likely reflect a more conservative political agenda when they convene in 2011.

Watch the video with NCSL's elections expert, Tim Storey, give an overview of the 2010 state legislative election.

 

Read NCSL's press release on how Republicans in 2010 state legislative elections.

For a detailed breakdown of state legislative elections and the results of ballot measures, log onto StateVote 2010.

Even Tougher Budget Year Ahead in Some States

By Jennie Drage Bowser

Thanks to the results on a handful of key ballot measures, legislatures are going to have an even tougher time than they anticipated balancing state budgets in some states.

On NCSL's Prop*50 blog, we break down the ballot meaures in Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington states.

For more election analysis, log onto NCSL's StateVote 2010 page.

Election Results: Drugs, Tobacco and Alcohol

By Jennie Drage Bowser

It has not been a good night for proponents of legalizing marijuana. The one possible bright spot is Arizona, where a measure to legalize marijuana for medical purposes is teetering in the balance as of early this morning. A medical marijuana proposal has failed to pass in South Dakota. South Dakota has now rejected medical marijuana twice -- the first time was back in 2006, when a measure very similar to this year's proposal received 47.7% of the vote. So far, South Dakota is the only state where voters have rejected medical marijuana.

Voters in Massachusetts have rejected a sales tax on alcohol. Passed by the Legislature in 2009, all of the revenue from this tax went into a fund for drug and alcohol treatment programs. In Washington, voters appear to be rejecting both measures that proposed privatizing the sale of alcohol. 

Voters have approved an expansion of South Dakota's smoking ban.

For more information on drug, tobacco and alcohol ballot measures, log onto our Prop*50 blog and NCSL's StateVote webpage.

Ballot Measure Updates

In today's election, voters in 37 states considered a total of 160 statewide ballot measures, 42 of which came from the citizen initiative process.  At this hour, here are a few of the latest updates on ballot measures from across the country:

• Measures guaranteering secret ballot votes for union organization are passing in Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah.
• Early results from Washington show that an income tax measure has been rejected, a 2/3 vote for taxes has been approved, one liquor license privatization measure is too close to call & the other is failing.
• Voters in Rhode Island have rejected the idea of dropping "and Providence Planations" from the official name of their state.
• Oklahoma voters are rejecting Q744, a K-12 education spending increase, and approving Q746, which mandates photo voter ID at the polls.
• Major tax cutting initiatives look to be failing - including Amendment 60 & 61 and Proposition 101 in Colorado & Question 3 in Massachusetts.  Question 1 in Massachusetts is still too close to call.

Continue to check in with us througout election night at StateVote 2010 on the NCSL homepage for real-time updates of legislative elections.

Effects of Top Two Primary System in Washington

by Karl Kurtz

An article in today's Sacramento Bee, "Little evidence in Washington that 'top two' primary moderates politics," in advance of next Tuesday's vote on a ballot proposition in California modeled on Washington's primary system reports on some useful research. The top two primary system, practiced in Washington and Louisiana, allows all candidates to run in the same primary with the top two finishers going to a runoff, regardless of party.

...[T]he experience in Washington so far offers little evidence that Proposition 14 proponents' promises of increased turnout and more moderate officeholders will pan out in California.

"There was nothing dramatic enough that happened to make someone stand up and say, 'Wow, this is really different,' " said Travis Ridout, a political science professor at Washington State University.

On the frequency of candidates form the same party appearing in a runoff:

Same-party runoffs have occurred in Washington:  Eight of 125 state legislative races in 2008 had two candidates of the same party in the general election.

But backers of Washington's measure said those instances benefited centrist candidates because runoff participants must appeal to a broader spectrum of voters in order to win.

"To no one's surprise, in each and every case like that the more moderate won," Ammons said.

On the tendency for party leaders under the top two system to discourage candidates from their own party in order not to split the vote:

A study by two economics professors at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., found that the total number of candidates running in primaries dropped after the top-two system was implemented.

One reason for the drop was that multiple candidates from the same side of the spectrum can split the vote, allowing, for example, two Republicans to emerge as the top vote-getters in a center-left district.

That scenario created "an incentive for the major party organizations to discourage 'too many' candidates from entering the primary contest for a particular office with that party's label," economists John H. Beck and Kevin E. Henrickson wrote.

The article captures the key arguments for and against a top two primary system.