BALLOT WATCH
The Home Stretch

In three weeks, voters in 18 states will decide 76 ballot initiatives, the "largest number of citizen-sponsored referendums in a non-presidential election in nearly 100 years." (See a comprehensive list of 2006 initiatives.) In years past, conservatives have effectively employed state initiatives to create wedge issues and motivate voters -- one study found that Ohio's measure to outlaw gay marriage in 2004 "helped President Bush carry that state and win a second term" -- while progressives "remained largely on the defensive." But this year is different. For the first time, progressives have a coordinated national ballot initiative strategy to advance our priorities. Across the country, and across partisan lines, progressive initiatives on the minimum wage, clean alternative energy, stem cell research, and protecting privacy rights enjoy public support, while the "issue of same-sex marriage...has largely failed to rouse conservative voters."

..OPPONENTS OF MINIMUM WAGE HIKE GET DESPERATE: Polls continue to show overwhelming bipartisan support for six state initiatives that would increase the minimum wage and index it to inflation, including 73 percent of voters in Montana, 73 percent in Ohio, and 77 percent in Nevada. ...GAY MARRIAGE FAILING TO ROUSE THE RIGHT WING: Eight states feature anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives this year, and most "will see the harshest possible versions of the amendment on the ballot," which outlaw "not only gay marriage and civil unions, but all domestic partner benefits." While several of the measures are expected to pass, "their emotional force in drawing committed, conservative voters to the polls, many political experts say, has been muted or spent," the New York Times reports...

OIL INDUSTRY THROWS THE BANK AT CA ENERGY INITIATIVE: Californians will vote this year on the Clean Alternative Energy Initiative, which would "impose a wellhead tax on oil companies operating in California" to finance $4 billion towards alternative-fuel vehicles and renewable energy and conservation research. (Watch Al Gore's new ad for the initiative.) A record-breaking $104.5 million has already been spent on the measure, including over $40 million from oil giants Chevron and Aera Energy, a joint venture of Shell and Exxon Mobil. The oil industry-funded ads have included the "insistent theme" that the initiative would send gas prices spiraling. But as President Clinton asked at a rally for the initiative last week at UCLA, "if they really thought you were going to pay for this, would they really be spending all this money trying to convince you to vote against it?" ...ANTI-CHOICE ACTIVISTS SING A DIFFERENT TUNE: South Dakotans will vote on an initiative to overturn the hard-line abortion ban passed recently by the state legislature, which included no exceptions for incest or rape. The latest polling shows 47 percent opposed to the abortion ban and 44 percent in favor, but that lead has narrowed as anti-choice activists in the state have tried to "deliberately avoid the familiar slogans of their movement." ...PROGRESSIVES LEAD ON STEM CELLS, ETHICS, ELECTION REFORM: In Missouri, 57 percent of voters support a ballot initiative that protects all stem cell research permitted under federal law (while prohibiting human cloning), compared to 27 percent opposed. The California Nurses Association has led the fight for an election reform initiative that would "raise the corporate tax rate by 0.2 percent -- to a level still below that at which it stood from 1980 to 1996 -- to bankroll campaigns for candidates who reject private fundraising and limit spending to the public dollars provided; show public support by gathering signatures and some $5 qualifying donations; and take part in debates." In Montana, 70 percent support a honest government measure that "would bar state legislators and other public and high-ranking appointed state officials from becoming lobbyists for two years after they leave office."


The Iraq Study Group is considering two options: "withdrawing American troops in phases, and bringing neighboring Iran and Syria into a joint effort to stop the fighting." "It's not going to be 'stay the course,'" one participant said. "The bottom line is, [current U.S. policy] isn't working… There's got to be another way."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said "his government will not force militias to disarm until later this year or early next year, despite escalating violence in Baghdad fueled by death squads and religious warfare." He also criticized the U.S.-military led coalition's overreliance on force in Iraq, calling it the "wrong approach."

Former President Bill Clinton said this weekend that voters "know something is wrong" about the politics in Washington. "I have never seen the American people so serious," said Clinton. "I think I know why. People know things are out of whack." Meanwhile, Bush and Rove are "inexplicably upbeat."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia yesterday debated American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen, arguing that nothing in the Constitution supports abortion rights or affirmative action. "Someday, you're going to get a very conservative Supreme Court and regret that approach," Scalia ominously warned.

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All the above bullets are from the Progressive news site at americanprogressaction.org

They seem to indicate there is still some life in the Olde Republic yet...

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