Yesterday was election day in various parts of the country. Here in Virginia there was the hotly contested race for governor between former state Attorney General Jerry Kilgore (R) and Lt. Governor Tim Kaine (D). Here are the final results:
- Kaine (D) - 52%
- Kilgore (R) - 46%
- Potts (I) - 2%
In the Lt. Governor race, Republican Bill Bolling squeaked by Democrat Leslie Byrne:
- Bolling (R) - 51%
- Byrne (D) - 49%
The third state-wide race was for Attorney General and as of this morning, it was still up in the air:
- McDonnell (R) - 50%
- Deeds (D) - 50%
Across the country Democrats did well for themselves. Senator Jon Corzine won the New Jersey governor race with ease. He will now have to appoint his own replacement in the U.S. Senate - a crucial decision for Democrats, who face an uphill battle in that 2006 senate race. The likely Republican opponent will be Tom Kean Jr., son of the former governor and chairman of the 9/11 commission. But here are yesterday's results:
- Corzine (D) - 53%
- Forrester (R) - 44%
Elsewhere, efforts to reform the redistricting process in Ohio failed (sigh). In Maine a gay marriage ban actually failed. I think that is the first state to reject such a ban. Meanwhile, in Texas voters added yet another amendment to their constitution: one that bans gay marriage, but which may also ban heterosexual marriage as well (oops). In the New York mayoral race, Bloomberg (R) cruised to an easy victory. That was to be expected.
What really troubles me is what happened in California. Arnold had put four ballot initiatives up for consideration and all of them were rejected. Democrats in the state are cheering, and the lefties at Daily Kos are blindly following that lead, but this seems totally misguided. Let's look at what the propositions intend to do:
- Proposition 74 would increase from two years to five years the amount of time it would take before public school teachers could get tenure. This seems entirely reasonable to me. Of course this was opposed by the teachers' union and Democrats put partisanship before principle and campaigned to reject this completely reasonable proposal.
- Proposition 75 would require public sector unions to get the consent of their members before making contributions to political campaigns. Again, this seems only reasonable. Union leaders shouldn't be deciding the politics of their membership without getting approval of those members. Again, Democrats, and the teachers' union opposed this and it failed by a similar 48%-51% margin. They argued that this was nothing but a move by Republicans to limit the power of Democrats since most public sector unions side with Democrats. Well duh. But why does that ipso facto make it a bad thing?
- Proposition 76 would have imposed spending limits that would have handcuffed the state in any attempts to correct its out of shape budget problems. This was rejected, as it should have been.
- Proposition 77 dealt with redistricting. Instead of having California's congressional districts drawn by the hyper-partisan state legislature, districts would be created by a panel of retired judges who would be free of partisan influences and, presumably, would be able to draw districts that resulted in fair and competitive congressional races. Democrats opposed this proposition because they felt that it would reduce their power and they could potentially lose some seats. Well of course it would result in some lost seats. But it should also result in some new seats as well and if a party is confident in its electoral program it shouldn't fear competitive elections. One of the biggest problems in American politics today is the number of congressional elections that are won by 30%+. That is simply ridiculous. Every state should take note of the success and stronger democracy that has arisen in Iowa and Arizona, where just such a non-partisan commission is responsible for slicing up the state. This is good for democracy and it is should have been good for California.
All of these propositions failed. That is a disgrace. Democrats should not be cheering just because they made Arnold look weaker by rejecting all his ideas. They should have looked at the merits of the issues before them and thought about how it would effect democracy, not just their own narrow interests. Consider this another reason why I am wary of the power of unions in the Democratic Party.
Recent Comments