Did Democrats get jobbed again?
"Look to ballot measures to find Democratic wins" by Francis Barry | Bloomberg News November 06, 2014
It was a great night for Democrats — on the issues.
Sure, Democratic candidates got shellacked, clobbered, whipped, walloped — pick your verb — in Tuesday’s election. But voters also passed judgment on dozens of ballot measures, and the news there was much better. On issues that Democrats traditionally champion — minimum wage, gun safety, abortion rights, voting rights, environmental protection, paid sick leave, and criminal justice reform — they came out on top.
Voters in four states that went with Mitt Romney in 2012 — Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota — approved minimum-wage increases. In San Francisco and Oakland, ballot measures to gradually increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour passed by wide margins, giving Democrats a further boost.
Voters in Washington state approved a measure requiring all gun sales to be accompanied by background checks, a law that the Democratic-led Senate failed to pass in the wake of the shooting massacre in Newtown, Conn. Washington voters also defeated a competing amendment, pushed by the gun-rights organizations, which aimed to prevent more checks. Polling shows that background checks have broad support across parties and gun owners, and the Washington referendum may embolden other states to take similar action.
In addition, Colorado’s Democratic governor, John Hickenlooper, who pushed for and won universal background checks and limits on high-capacity magazines, eked out a victory despite attacks from the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups.
On abortion, voters in Colorado and North Dakota rejected state constitutional amendments that defined human life as beginning at conception — a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. The Colorado measure would have changed its criminal code to treat the unborn as children. A ballot measure in Tennessee granting the state Legislature explicit authority to regulate abortion passed, but the state will have to stay within the bounds of Roe.
Related: Lone North Dakota abortion clinic halts medication abortions
Ballot measures to protect the environment also fared well. Voters in Florida adopted a constitutional amendment designed to increase water and land conservation. In California and Rhode Island, voters passed bond measures allowing the state to borrow on behalf of environmental protection, and a similar measure appears headed for victory in Maine.
That doesn't make $en$e.
New Jersey voters passed a constitutional amendment to protect open space. Those victories more than made up for losses in North Dakota (directing oil revenue to conservation) and Massachusetts (expanding bottle deposits).
Republicans had a number of important ballot measure victories, including tax caps in Georgia and Tennessee. But on the whole, even as the Democratic Party was trounced, traditional Democratic issues had an awfully good night.
Huh?
Does that make sense to you?
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