Voters to choose 2 governors, decide ballot issues

ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS (AP) — Votes on immi­gra­tion, union rights and Pres­i­dent Obama’s health care law could hold hints of the Amer­i­can public’s mind­set, four years into an eco­nomic down­turn and one year from the pres­i­den­tial election.

Tuesday’s elec­tions also include gov­er­nors’ races in Mis­sis­sippi and Ken­tucky that will point to polit­i­cal prospects for 2012, when an addi­tional 10 gov­er­nor­ships will be con­tested. In both states, the gov­er­nors’ offices are expected to stay in the hands of incum­bent par­ties, per­haps indi­cat­ing that vot­ers aren’t ready to aban­don their loyalties.

But regard­less of the bal­lot ques­tions and key polit­i­cal races, most experts agree the most impor­tant fac­tor in 2012 remains the stub­bornly weak economy.

“If the econ­omy were to turn around in the next year, that’s going to mat­ter a lot more than what hap­pens in bal­lot issues,” said polit­i­cal ana­lyst Justin Buchler.

Law­mak­ers have tried to tie other issues, such as pub­lic employ­ees’ union rights, to their states’ eco­nomic struggles.

In bat­tle­ground Ohio, vot­ers will decide whether to repeal a law severely lim­it­ing the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights of more than 350,000 teach­ers, fire­fight­ers, police offi­cers and other pub­lic employ­ees, and whether to pro­hibit peo­ple from being required to buy health insur­ance as part of the national health care overhaul.

A vote against the health care law would be mostly sym­bolic, but Repub­li­can oppo­nents of the mea­sure hope to use the vote as part of a legal challenge.

Recent polls sug­gest vot­ers are lean­ing toward rejec­tion of the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing law, but the final tally could be close. If approved, it would per­mit work­ers to nego­ti­ate on wages but not on pen­sions or health care ben­e­fits. It also bans public-worker strikes, scraps bind­ing arbi­tra­tion and elim­i­nates annual pay raises for teachers.

The vote will be a ref­er­en­dum on both Repub­li­can back­ers and GOP Gov. John Kasich, who pushed strongly for the leg­is­la­tion. The out­come will also be closely watched by pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates as a gauge of the Ohio elec­torate, which is seen as a bellwether.

No Repub­li­can has won the White House with­out Ohio, and only two Democ­rats did so in more than a century.

The gov­er­nors’ races will be closely watched by both par­ties, since gov­er­nors can mar­shal resources and get-out-the-vote efforts cru­cial to any White House candidate.

In Mis­sis­sippi, Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant appears poised to keep the governor’s man­sion in GOP hands, suc­ceed­ing Haley Bar­bour, who toyed briefly with a run for pres­i­dent. Hat­ties­burg Mayor Johnny Dupree is the first black major-party nom­i­nee for gov­er­nor in Mis­sis­sippi, but an upset win for him isn’t in the cards.

In Ken­tucky, Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Gov. Steve Beshear is waltz­ing to re-election despite high unem­ploy­ment, bud­get short­falls and an onslaught of third-party attack ads.

Tuesday’s elec­tion comes just weeks after two other gov­er­nors’ races. Repub­li­can Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jin­dal won 66 per­cent of the vote last month in the state’s open pri­mary, more than enough to avoid a recount. And in West Vir­ginia, Demo­c­rat Earl Ray Tomblin nar­rowly beat Repub­li­can Bill Mal­oney in a spe­cial election.

Polit­i­cal ana­lyst Alan Rosen­thal says vot­ers are so polar­ized today — with fewer cross­ing party lines — that choos­ing a can­di­date is a bet­ter indi­ca­tion of the public’s mood than decid­ing a bal­lot question.

Pick­ing sides on a ref­er­en­dum may rein­force party loy­alty, but “it’s not going to be as clear as when you’re vot­ing for a can­di­date,” said Rosen­thal, a Rut­gers Uni­ver­sity professor.

Social issues are also on the bal­lot. In Mis­sis­sippi, one ref­er­en­dum asks whether the state should define life as begin­ning at con­cep­tion. The mea­sure stands a decent chance of becom­ing the first vic­tory in the coun­try for the so-called per­son­hood move­ment, which aims to make abor­tion all but illegal.

Sim­i­lar attempts have failed in Col­orado and are under way elsewhere.

Also in Mis­sis­sippi, a pro­posed con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment would pro­hibit the gov­ern­ment from tak­ing pri­vate prop­erty by emi­nent domain and trans­fer­ring it to other people.

In Ari­zona, Repub­li­can state Sen. Rus­sell Pearce, archi­tect of the immi­gra­tion law that thrust the issue into the national polit­i­cal debate, faces a recall that could throw him out of office. The Repub­li­can attempt­ing to defeat him has made immi­gra­tion a con­stant theme, but Pearce has a 3-to-1 fundrais­ing advantage.

Other votes of note:

— In Ken­tucky, comic-turned-politician Robert Farmer upset local res­i­dents with some hill­billy jokes, but he could ride name recog­ni­tion to a new job as agri­cul­tural com­mis­sioner. In Ohio, polit­i­cally incor­rect come­dian Drew Hast­ings, a “Com­edy Cen­tral” fix­ture, is run­ning for mayor of tiny Hillsboro.

— In Maine, vot­ers will decide whether to repeal a new state law that requires vot­ers to reg­is­ter at least two days before an elec­tion. A repeal would effec­tively restore Elec­tion Day voter reg­is­tra­tion, which had been avail­able for nearly four decades. Maine has two other bal­lot ques­tions ask­ing res­i­dents whether they want to allow casi­nos in spe­cific communities.

— New Jer­sey vot­ers are being asked whether to legal­ize sports bet­ting in a mea­sure polls indi­cate will likely pass. But it won’t change much since New Jer­sey is among the vast major­ity of states sub­ject to a fed­eral ban on sports betting.

— In Philadel­phia, Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Michael Nut­ter is expected to win easy re-election.

— In Wash­ing­ton state, vot­ers decide whether to end the state-run liquor sys­tem and allow large stores to sell liquor. The effort has been bankrolled by giant retailer Costco, which spent more than $22 mil­lion to make it the costli­est ini­tia­tive in Wash­ing­ton history.

— Ore­gon, the first state to let res­i­dents vote by mail, is pio­neer­ing another vot­ing option: cast­ing bal­lots by iPad. Elec­tion work­ers are tak­ing iPads and print­ers to the homes of vot­ers with cer­tain dis­abil­i­ties — poor vision, for exam­ple — ahead of Tues­day to let them vote and print out bal­lots that are ready to be mailed.

Ore­gon also holds a spe­cial pri­mary to replace Demo­c­ra­tic Rep. David Wu, who resigned his seat in August after a news­pa­per pub­lished alle­ga­tions that he had an unwanted sex­ual encounter with an 18-year-old woman. Wu was the fourth mem­ber of Con­gress to quit this year in the wake of a sex scandal.

— In Seat­tle, even vot­ers in this lib­eral bas­tion appear unlikely to sup­port an increase in license plate fees to plug bud­get gaps.

— In San Fran­cisco, vot­ers are decid­ing pension-reform mea­sures designed to save the city money bil­lions of dollars.

Posted by AP News on Nov 7 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.