American democracy is tortuously indirect. On Tuesday, citizens will not exactly cast their ballots for the first female nominee of a major party or a real estate developer turned reality TV star, but for generally unknown candidates who are members of the electoral college: the people who will cast votes for president sometime in December.
But when it comes to the really important issues – life, death, marijuana and condoms – direct democracy rules the day. There are more than 150 statewide measures on the ballot on 8 November, and scores more city- and countywide initiatives for voters to decide on.
Here are some of the key issues that voters will address on election day.
Marijuana
We talk a lot about red states and blue states, but come Tuesday, the entire west coast could go green. California, Arizona and Nevada will vote on whether to join Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Alaska in legalizing recreational marijuana use. Maine and Massachusetts are also voting on recreational marijuana measures. Four other states will vote on whether to join the 25 states that have legalized medical marijuana.
California, the world’s sixth-largest economy, is the real prize here. Analysts already put the size of the state’s legal marijuana market at $2.7bn and project it could grow to $6.4bn by 2020.
Solar power and carbon tax
Two key climate-related ballot measures with wildly different objectives will take place on the east and west coasts of the US on Tuesday.
In Florida, a proposition called Amendment 1 would change the state’s constitution to restrict the ability of homeowners to sell electricity they create through rooftop solar panels to the grid. The measure, backed by Florida’s large utilities, has been attacked as “fundamentally dishonest” by green groups because it appears to be superficially pro-solar. Energy experts have predicted a severe downturn in Florida’s already struggling solar industry, should the measure pass.
The idea of a national price on carbon was shot down early in Barack Obama’s presidency, but the state of Washington may follow a different path. A measure called I-732 calls for the establishment of the first carbon tax in the US, which would cost emitters $25 for each ton of carbon dioxide from 2018, rising gradually over the course of 40 years to $100 a ton. The revenue-neutral idea has, however, split the environmental movement, with some activists unhappy that it does not funnel money to clean energy projects.
Slavery
The 13th amendment of the US constitution abolished slavery – for the most part. As Ava DuVernay showed in her new documentary 13th, the ban on involuntary servitude does not apply to convicts.
Colorado’s state constitution includes a ban on slavery that mirrors the federal language: “There shall never be in this state either slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” Amendment T would remove that key exception.
It’s a timely, if symbolic, measure that comes in a year that saw a prison strike spread across 22 states.
Progressive experiments
Bernie Sanders may have lost the Democratic nomination, but the spirit of his political revolution lives on – to an extent.
In Colorado, proponents of a single-payer healthcare system gathered 100,000 signatures to place Amendment 69, dubbed “ColoradoCare”, on the ballot. The measure would create a $36bn health system to insure every resident of the state, paid for by a new 10% payroll tax. ColoradoCare would be designed to replace private health insurance. Opponents, including private medical providers such as Anthem and Kaiser, have spent more than $4m trying to defeat it.
As with Sanders’ campaign, the liberal reforms have faced considerable opposition from mainstream Democratic politicians, in addition to the big business interests they challenge.
Death penalty
A quarter of United States’ death row prisoners are in California. On election day, voters will choose between executing them more quickly – or mandating that they die of other causes in prison.
Two competing ballot measures will address the fate of the state’s 741 death row inmates. Proposition 62 would abolish the death penalty in the state and make life in prison without possibility of parole the maximum punishment for murder – a sentence that would be applied retroactively to current death row inmates. Proposition 66 would keep the death penalty, and speed up the notoriously slow appeals process.
Going against the tide of the rest of the western world, Nebraska will vote on whether to reinstate the death penalty, which was repealed by the state legislature in 2015.
Oklahoma is also voting on the death penalty – to reaffirm the state’s commitment to it. In 2015, the state’s attorney general suspended executions following a botched attempt at a lethal injection. State Question 776 would enshrine the state legislature’s power to carry out executions by any method “not prohibited by the United States constitution”.
Minimum wage
The series of work stoppages and protests known as the Fight for $15 movement set off a wave of minimum wage increases around the country – either through legislatures or ballot initiatives. The movement faces decisions on election day, when Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington will vote on whether to increase minimum wages above the $7.25 federal rate.
An outlier is South Dakota, where voters will hold a referendum on whether to lower the minimum wage for workers under age 18. In November 2014, South Dakotans voted to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50, with an annual cost-of-living increase. State legislators then decided to pass a law taking away the wage increase for youth under 18. Opponents of the two-tiered system gathered signatures to place it on the ballot, and now voters will have another shot at addressing the question.
Of course, everyone who votes on the minimum wage is eligible for the higher one. South Dakotans under the age of 18 will not have a say on the matter.
Homelessness
Homelessness is crisis in many west coast cities, and some are taking to the ballot to try to make a difference.
Los Angeles is hoping to make a $1.2bn investment over 10 years in support of housing units and programs through the issuance of bonds. The measure will require a two-thirds super-majority to pass and is being supported by Mayor Eric Garcetti, who has called homelessness “the greatest moral crisis we face”.
Meanwhile, San Francisco, a city that has long prided itself on being the progressive counterpart to LA’s Hollywood superficiality, has a ballot measure that would outlaw the tents that many homeless people sleep in. A group of tech billionaires and millionaires – venture capitalist Michael Moritz, angel investor Ron Conway, and hedge fund manager William Oberndorf – have each donated $49,999 to the anti-tent campaign.
Though its backers refer to the proposition as “Housing not Tents”, the measure does not include any additional funding for housing or services.
Miscellany
California’s Proposition 60 would require pornography performers to wear condoms during film shoots. The proposal is broadly opposed by the performers themselves, who argue that industry testing protocols keep them safe and that a government mandate would push production underground – or into Nevada.
Then there’s the movement to enshrine a constitutional right to hunt and fish. Since 1996, 18 states have amended their constitutions to elevate hunting and fishing to the level of life and liberty, as far as inalienable rights go.
Indiana and Kansas hope to join their ranks this November, though many local editorial boards have advised otherwise. “No sentient human being can believe that the state of Indiana would actually ban hunting and fishing,” wrote the editorial board of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.
The measures appear politically popular. Indiana’s right to hunt and fish amendment was endorsed by governor and vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence.
