By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Revving up their base with emotionally resonant issues, Democrats won increases in the minimum wage in at least five states, while Republicans pulled out their 2004 playbook and appeared to have won bans on same-sex marriage in at least six states.
Voters approved minimum-wage increases in Arizona, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Ohio. The vote was too close to call in Colorado.
Same-sex marriage bans, meanwhile, were approved in Idaho, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin, and appeared likely to win in Colorado, where a measure to grant the legal rights of marriage to domestic partners was losing. The vote in South Dakota was too close to call, but in Arizona the ban appeared to be losing, with more than 92 percent of precincts reporting and 52 percent of voters voting no.
In one of the most closely watched state votes, South Dakota voters soundly rejected a ban on nearly all abortions.
The ban, which had been approved by the legislature and the governor earlier in the year, was the strictest such law in the country. Supporters had hoped it would be appealed to the Supreme Court and open a legal door for similar antiabortion laws.
"Tonight's victory belongs to the people of South Dakota who fought back against this intrusion into their personal private decisions," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, which helped fund the campaign against the abortion ban. "It's a wake-up call to lawmakers in other states, that the pro-choice majority will not allow an assault on Roe v. Wade to go unanswered."
Intense attention was also focused on a Missouri measure to legalize stem cell research. With more than 70 percent of precincts counted, that vote was nearly tied.
The stem cell vote erupted last month as a national issue when actor Michael J. Fox, visibly shaking from Parkinson's disease, appeared in an ad for State Auditor Claire McCaskill (D), who edged out a victory over Sen. James M. Talent (R) early this morning.
McCaskill supports the measure, but Talent opposes it. Rush Limbaugh weighed in on the issue, first accusing Fox of exaggerating his symptoms and then apologizing, while maintaining that the actor was being used by politicians.
In Michigan, a measure banning the use of affirmative action programs for education, employment and public contracts won easily. A University of Michigan affirmative action program had been appealed to the Supreme Court, where it was substantially upheld.
Same-sex marriage was on ballots in 13 states in 2004, and analysts said then that the issue was a factor in drawing conservatives to the polls and in Republican victories. This year, though, the issue did not seem to have the same political punch, in part because few of the eight states with the proposed marriage bans had competitive Senate or House races. In those that did, Virginia and Tennessee, the issue was not especially prominent.
But wage measures in Arizona, Missouri, Montana and Ohio shared the ballot with close Senate races with a GOP incumbent.
In Ohio, where incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine (R) was defeated, voters approved an initiative to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $6.85 and index future raises to inflation. It was backed by labor unions, faith groups and liberal activists. Polls in recent days showed that the minimum wage measures had strong support in every state where they appeared on the ballot.
It was land-use regulation, though, that appeared to be the preeminent ballot issue, with measures in 12 states.
Concerns about property rights have been driven by the populist backlash against a Supreme Court decision last year on eminent domain. In Kelo v. New London , the court upheld the right of local governments to condemn private property and then hand it over to someone else for commercial development. The court said then that states could tighten eminent domain laws.
Eight measures are designed to do exactly that, and they appeared to be winning in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Dakota, Oregon and South Carolina.
Measures in Arizona, California, Idaho and Washington reached much further. They would compel state and local governments to pay property owners when land-use rules, such as zoning regulations, reduce the value of their property.
The measure appeared likely to win in Arizona. In Idaho the measure lost, in California the vote was too close to call, and in Washington it appeared to be losing.
Much of the funding for these measures on regulatory takings has come from libertarians and land developers, trying to harness anger over the Kelo decision. Howard Rich, a wealthy libertarian real estate developer from Manhattan, has spent as much as $11 million to support ballot initiatives in the West.
Courts removed land-use measures from ballots in Montana, where a judge found a "pervasive and general pattern of fraud" in the gathering of signatures, and in Nevada, where the measure was disqualified on technical grounds.
The land-use measures echo an initiative approved two years ago in Oregon. Passage there of Measure 37 gutted the nation's strongest laws against sprawl.
There is concern among elected officials in Arizona, California, Idaho and Washington that passage of the land-use measures in their states could trigger tax increases, slow growth and scuttle efforts to manage development.
Farmers and developers support the measures, arguing that their property rights have been stolen in the name of growth management.
Staff writer Kari Lydersen in Chicago contributed to this report.
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