I did not follow yesterday’s elections as closely as I should have. I’ve been a bit, er, distracted the past week.
Ohio was a loss for those who want to save state and local governments from the grip of unsustainable union control. The national unions went all in, and won big. There were several factors, including that the legislation also covered police and firemen, and most importantly in my view, the law did not take effect under Ohio’s procedure. Unlike in Wisconsin, where people are seeing the benefit of the law, in Ohio there was no such experience. But excuses aside, it showed that dislodging the public sector union grip will be difficult.
The good news from Ohio is that the voters overwhelmingly approved the legislation which allows Ohio to opt-out of Obamacare. It’s probably ineffective ultimately because of federal supremacy, but it shows that Obamacare remains unpopular even among an electorate sympathetic to unions. (added) This bodes well for 2012.
In Virginia, Democrats saw the benefits of redistricting maps they drew. But even so, it looks like the Republicans will take over the state Senate, if only after a recount in one district.
What else of improtance?
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A question: will Ohio NOT passing the bill have the advantage that people will be able to clearly compare Ohio to Wisconsin in a year or two, to see which approach worked?
Good point. Perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise.
It is a good point, but having grown up in Ohio, I don’t think it can be called a blessing of any kind. I could see, even as a child, that most of the people in my little town (an industrial town on the Ohio river) couldn’t see much further into the future than next week, even as it concerned their own welfare. Ohio will now have fewer police and firemen available, higher taxes, and will descend economically to the same level as Michigan.
I know what you mean, JayDick. I’m just looking for something positive to take away.
Governors are always saying we have 50 potential laboratories … well, I wish we could control for all other variables, but hopefully Wisconsin by general comparison will show that Ohio took the wrong route.
The other blessing is that unions and other progs now have $30 million less to spend elsewhere.
The R’s plan to pass parts of the repealed law separately, and as parts of other bills (which is what they should’ve done in the first place). If they do, it won’t be a clean comparison. They’ll likely avoid touching the issues the D’s demagogued most successfully – police/fire collective bargaining and the prohibition against being able to strike.
If they’re smart, they’ll start be passing a law prohibiting the state from collecting union dues. Can’t imagine that getting overturned, and it would devastate union finances. Once union members have to write a personal check to pay their dues, rather than having it forcibly extracted from their paychecks, union dues drop off dramatically (over 90% decrease in IN). Without this revenue, the unions wouldn’t have the warchest needed to fight other reforms.
“What else of improtance?”
Hey Prof… Thanks for reinforcing my hope that I’m not the only one that “occasionally” has problems typing!
Now, to the subject of the unions yielding undue influence in Ohio, one only has to look at RI to see the results of such influence.
With respect to Obamacare, well all we can hope for is a change in regime to effect a cure.
I’m not very hopeful of any of it taking place…
Two in Mississippi: Voter ID and personhood.
Voter ID won by a wide margin.
Personhood lost by a wide margin, but I think this reflects poor drafting rather than ideology. As written, the amendment very likely would have made contraceptives illegal, which is not a position that would pass anywhere except Vatican city.
Also in Mississippi, the anti-Kelo referendum passed “overwhelmingly”. For a textbook example of why many people view the GOP Establishment as a sock puppet for big business, read the Clarion Ledger’s report about the results.
“What else of importance?”
Well, Washington state is out of the liquor business! Costco won this time around! I can now buy the Kirkland vodka which is quite good as I’m just a mile and half from the Idaho/Washington border. Idaho is also in the liquor business – maybe this will get them out of it?
Congratulations!
I’m hoping the results in VA will have the same result. There was a push to privatize the state-owned liquor stores a year or so ago, but the D controlled Senate blocked it. Now, the R’s have full control. Still a longshot, of course, just takes one squishy R to stop it.
In their infinite wisdom, the Kansas Citians who decided to vote yesterday chose to raise their taxes. It’s a tax intended to raise $14 million a year to benefit the zoo.
I would have considered voting for it, or at least I may not have voted against it, if it had a sunset provision. But it does not, so it’s a permanent, never ending, perpetual tax. It’s gonna be one helluva zoo in a couple of decades if you believe the politicians won’t eventually raid the fund and use the money on some other pet projects.
In 1898 the US passed a temporary tax on telegraphs to help pay for the war against Spain. They seem to have forgotten that it was supposed to be temporary – it remained in effect until just last year. They turned it into a tax on telephone use. Everyone with a land-line telephone paid the tax for about a century.
Of course, maybe the war against Spain just ended, have I not been paying attention?
“temporary tax” = oxymoron.
TEA PARTIER/CITIZEN REPORTER ATTACKED BY OCCUPY SAN DIEGO PROTESTER!!! I know the woman attacked; she is a long time citizen advocate and highly respectful to others.
VA – ALL non-partisan commissions are leftwing, all of them. Virginia had R Governor, R controlled House, D controlled Senate for redistricting. So, it was farmed out to a non-partisan commission comprised ENTIRELY of former Democrat legislators and current radical leftwing college professors. Needless to say, it didn’t go well.
Prior to the election, D’s held the Senate by 22-18. Currently it is a 20-20 tie, with an R Lt Gov casting the tiebreaking vote. But, one of the R pickups was by only 86 votes of over 45,000 cast – subject to recount IF the D requests it (hasn’t yet).
I’ve heard the Statewide vote was 60% R, 40% D, and the redistricting by D’s is all that kept them with 50% of the Senate seats but I can’t find a reliable source. With no statewide offices up, and large numbers of unconstested races for both sides, I’m not sure you can really measure this this year anyway.
Heard on the local news tonight that Reeves was ahead of Houck by 200 now. Houck still hasn’t requested a recount, but I wouldn’t put it past him.
My boss’ boss (my uberboss? The Germans would definitely have a word for this) is a conservative R that voted for Houck. Like most state level VA D’s outside of Alexandria/Arlington, Houck is strong on 2nd Amendment issues – he’s certainly to the right of, say, Sen Murkowski or Brown on pretty much everything.
I was trying to talk him out of it on Monday, and he was laying out his reasons for voting for a D. All of which I’ve thrown back in his face today, along with: “You’re going to feel pretty stupid if he wins by 1 vote!”
Mississippi
Its possible that the R’s will win the state House for the first time since Reconstruction!! There’s a bunch (9 I think) of races yet to be determined though (recounts and runoffs). Last I saw, R’s held a 1 seat advantage with 9 seats still in play.
They also passed a State Constitutional Amendment prohibiting eminent domain in cases where the property is given to another individual (or corporation) rather than used by the state. This is a reaction against SCOTUS’ horribly misguided Kelo decision that allowed eminent domain to take private property and give it to a private developer on the expectation of higher tax revenue (the company was Pfizer, which after winning the decision declined to develop the land – the houses all got wiped out but nothing ever got built). Note that the NY Times building in NY City is build on land confiscated by the city under eminent domain and given to the Times. Columbia University is in the process of doing the same thing.
They failed to pass a ‘personhood’ referendum, by a margin of roughly 4:3. Don’t read too much into this, since even the pro-life movement was split on it.
[…] there was a very bright spot for Republicans in Ohio. That was that a lot of Ohio voters voted against Obama’s health scam even as they were voting against the collective bargaining bill. As we have repeatedly warned (HERE […]
A quibble about your reference to “federal supremacy” over the Ohio vote to ban insurance mandates. Try and find anything to that effect in the Constitution in vain. It’s a legal doctrine invented to buttress centralized government. States have sovereignty in areas of law where powers are not explicitly granted to the federal government, including health care. This is not “nullification”, where South Carolina rejected a federal tariff law that was within Congress’ constitutional remit, it is a simple application of the federalist system itself.
Here’s the Constitutional justification for it:
THE SUPREMACY CLAUSE Article. VI. This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Usually, whenever there are state and federal laws that are conflicting, the courts will nullify the state law.
The problem, of course, is that most federal laws are unconstitutional – they deal with issues that, under the 10th Amendment, were to be left to the states. IMO, unless the federal law is dealing with something clearly specified in Article I, Section 8, then the courts *should* be resolving these conflicts by nullifying the federal law. Of course, they never do. FDR successfully bullied the Supreme Court. Wickard v Fillmore and cases based on it have resulted in such a massive expansion of the Commerce Clause that the 10th Amendment is meaningless.
I am an Ohio native. The reason issue 2 failed was publicity. No one would put a pro issue 2 in their yard. There is a distinct fear of retribution that permeated the columbus Ohio area. Also, state government didn’t follow the rule of evolutionary change. Thus the result with the vote. But should we really need towait 20 years to undo union damage?
Update on VA & MS
VA House result is officially a supermajority (2/3) win for R’s.
The VA Senate race we need to get to a 20/20 tie (with R Lt Gov holding the tiebreaking vote) was originally an 86 vote lead for the R, now at 224 vote lead for the R. The D still has the option to request a recount but hasn’t yet.
The Mississippi House, which has been D controlled since reconstruction, currently has R’s with a 2 seat lead and 2 seats still in play.