Voters get to decide on a lot of particular measures today.
Voters face a difficult choice today as they survey their options for the presidency, but several state ballots are also offering citizens the opportunity to weigh in on a variety of contentious policies, including marijuana legalization, background checks for gun purchases, and minimum-wage requirements.
Colorado voters will find a question on their ballot about legalizing physician-assisted suicide for patients with a terminal illness. Such a policy is currently in place in California, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Montana. (The District of Columbia city council voted last week to legalize assisted suicide as well; the measure awaits the mayor’s signature.)
Meanwhile, both recreational and medical marijuana are featured on the ballot in several states. Recreational marijuana — already legal in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and the District of Columbia — is on the ballot today in Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada. California considered a ballot measure to legalize marijuana as early as 1972, but the effort was defeated then by a margin of two to one. Nevada, too, previously considered a measure to legalize the drug, but it was defeated on the ballot in 2006. Recreational marijuana may be on the ballot in at least two states in upcoming election years: Ohio in 2017 and Mississippi in 2018.
Medical marijuana, which is already legal in half of U.S. states, is on the ballot in four more: Arkansas, Florida, Montana, and North Dakota. In Arkansas, however, the results won’t stick, because the state supreme court ruled in October that it can’t be considered, owing to invalid signatures for placing it on the ballot. Florida already considered allowing medical marijuana in 2014, but the measure was defeated. Both Oklahoma and Wyoming are considering placing the issue on the ballot in 2018.
Two states, Alabama and Virginia, have ballot measures to adopt right-to-work language as constitutional provisions, which would cement laws forbidding workplaces to require labor-union membership as a condition for employment. Both of these states have had right-to-work legislation on the books for decades, but approval of these ballot measures would enshrine the law in their constitutions. Twenty-six states are currently right-to-work states, but only six of those are so by constitutional provision rather than by legislation.
In California, Maine, Nevada, and Washington, voters will consider enacting stricter gun-control laws. Maine’s and Nevada’s measures would require background checks on all gun purchases, meaning that all firearm transfers would have to go through a licensed gun dealer who would run the background check. In Washington, the measure would authorize courts to issue extreme-risk protection orders to remove a citizen’s access to guns. Meanwhile, the outcome of the vote in California is irrelevant, because this summer the state legislature passed a number of gun-control laws implementing even stricter sanctions than those being considered on the ballot. The package of laws signed by Governor Jerry Brown (D.), among other things, reclassifies semi-automatic rifles as “assault weapons,” forbids the loaning of firearms except in very narrow circumstances, requires the state attorney general to keep records of ammunition purchases, and bans the possession of magazines capable of holding more than ten cartridges.
Finally, four states have ballot measures to raise their minimum-wage requirements. The measures in Arizona, Colorado, and Maine would raise the minimum wage to $12 by 2020, while Washington would increase its minimum wage to $13.50 by the same target year. Both Arizona and Washington would also create a right to paid sick leave.
— Alexandra DeSanctis is a National Review Institute William F. Buckley Fellow in Political Journalism.