From regulations on pornography, to assisted suicide and the death penalty, here are our top ten initiatives to watch.
Recreational Marijuana
Additionally, medical marijuana use is on the ballot in North Dakota, Montana, Arkansas, and Florida. The use of cannabis for medicinal purposes is already legal in 25 states and Washington DC.
Nationwide, legalization is favored by 57 percent of Americans.
DC Statehood
In the Advisory Referendum B ballot measure in the District of Columbia, residents are voting whether they want the city to become the 51st state in the nation.
Currently, Congress controls the court, budget, and laws in the district — without residents having Congressional representation of their own. Even if this initiative passes, Congress would still need to approve the request.
While statehood is supported by a record high of 70 percent of voters who live there, it only has 27 percent support nationwide.
Guns
Four states have gun-control measures on the ballot; California, Maine, Nevada, and Washington.
Proposition 63 in California contains a slew of new measures, including a hotly-debated background check policy for purchasing ammunition. Residents currently must pass a background check to purchase a gun.
In Maine, they are focusing on background checks for the purchase or transfer of firearms.
Nevada’s Question 1 will ban the sale of firearms from person to person unless a licensed dealer conducts a federal background check.
In Washington, an initiative aims to allow courts to issue temporary orders to deny people who are violent, “exhibiting mental illness,” or indicating that they may self harm from purchasing guns. The requests to the court could come from police, family, or roommates.
Minimum Wage
Arizona, Colorado, and Maine have an initiative on the ballot to raise their minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020. In Washington, they are seeking to raise their state minimum to $13.50, in the same time frame.
Arizona is additionally seeking to give workers paid sick time, and Maine is seeking to tie their minimum wage to the cost of living.
This issue is the subject of heated debates, with opponents arguing that it will discourage business owners from hiring more workers or looking into an automated computerized workforce.
Those who are fighting for the wage hikes point out that after each of the nearly two dozen federal minimum wage increases since 1938, employment has actually increased 68 percent of the time.
Healthcare
Colorado has another measure that former Bernie Sanders supporters may be interested in, to establish a single-payer state-run healthcare system called “Coloradocare.” This bill is also nicknamed the “universal healthcare ballot measure.” Sanders has also traveled to this state to promote this initiative.
Death Penalty
Issues surrounding the death penalty are on the ballot in California, Oklahoma, and Nebraska.
In California, home to a quarter of all death row inmates, voters will choose whether to abolish the practice entirely. If it passes, the highest possible sentence in the state would be life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Another measure on the ballot in California would keep the death penalty and shorten the appeal process, speeding executions. If both of the conflicting measures pass, the one with more votes will be signed into law.
In Nebraska, the confusing Referendum 426 would ultimately bring back the death penalty by repealing the state’s ban on the practice.
Oklahoma, which has the highest execution-rate per capita in the nation, is voting to give the state the power of executing people by whatever means they deem appropriate. A botched execution in the state led to a temporary moratorium on execution by lethal injection, while they rewrite the drug-use protocol. If passed, voters will be deciding that the death penalty “shall not be deemed to be or constitute the infliction of cruel or unusual punishment.”
Safe Sex in Pornography
In California, voters will be deciding if pornography actors will be required to use condoms during sex scenes. The measure would also require porn producers to pay for vaccinations against sexually-transmitted diseases as well as for regular testing.
Assisted Suicide
Three doctors would be required to sign off that the patient is choosing death voluntarily.
Critics of this measure worry that the terminally ill or the elderly will be coerced into terminating their life, instead of undergoing expensive treatments.
Grocery Bag Taxes
California has not one, but two ballot measures regarding the use of plastic grocery bags, and it is also extremely confusing.
Proposition 65 will mandate that the 10-cent fee for disposable plastic bags go to an Environmental Protection and Enhancement Fund.
The next proposition dealing with bags is Proposition 67, a referendum which bans plastic bags in grocery stores all together. It would however, allow them to sell recycled paper and reusable bags, for a minimum of 10 cents each, and keep the proceeds.
Prison “Slavery”
The 13th amendment of the US constitution abolished slavery, but it does not apply to convicts. Colorado voters will be voting to extend this right to prisoners.
“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,” the state constitution currently reads.
Amendment T would remove the exception to the prohibition.
