Democratic candidates across the country may not have made a raise in the minimum wage the centerpiece of their campaigns this year, but the minimum wage issue appears to be one who time has definitely arrived.

The federal miniumum wage is currently $5.15 per hour. The last time that the federal minimum wage was raised by Congress was in September 1997.

Prior to the November 2006 election, 17 states and the District of Columbia had set the minimum wage above the federal line. Six states had ballot measures this year to raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation. Those states were Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Missouri, Nevada, and Ohio. All six minimum wage measures passed.

Of the 11 states with eminent domain measures on the November ballot, nine passed the measures into law. The states that passed eminent domain measures were Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, and South Carolina. Eminent domain measures failed to pass in California and Idaho.

The Initiative and Referendum Institute noted that the two eminent domain measures that failed “also included a regulatory takings component that would have required governments to compensate owners when their property values were reduced by land use regulations.” Arizona’s eminent domain measure, Proposition 207, contained a similar provision, and it passed by a 2-1 margin.

As was the case with the Oregon measure passed in November and another Oregon land use measure passed in 2004, Measure 37, opponents of the Arizona measure vowed to start litigation against the measure almost as soon as it passed.

Despite predictions that same-sex marriage could turn the November election (the same way that conventional wisdom holds that it did in 2004), as Ben Adler wrote in The New Republic recently, “All in all, gay marriage policies, including not only anti-marriage referenda but also the New Jersey Supreme Court’s pro-gay marriage decision, proved to be an electoral dog that didn’t bark this year.”

The New Jersey Supreme Court issued a ruling on October 25 that homosexual couples are entitled to the same legal rights as heterosexual couples, and the dominant prediction was that, as a New York Times article put it, “the low-key tenor of the same-sex marriage debate could change in a thunderclap if a court decision that appears to undermine traditional marriage boundaries is handed down before the election.”

Seven states passed the same-sex bans on their ballots this year. The states that passed them were Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Idaho, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. According to the Initiative and Referendum Institute, that brings the total number of states that have approved same-sex marriage bans (most of the time with other restrictions added) to 23.

An unusual wrinkle to this story is that in Arizona, where Proposition 107 was supported by politicians as prominent as John McCain, the same-sex marriage ban failed at the ballot by 52% to 48%, largely because the ban would have also denied benefits to same-sex couples. In addition to passing Amendment 43, a same-sex marriage ban, Colorado voters rejected Referendum I, which would have extended to same-sex couples the same rights and benefits that apply to heterosexual marriages. Referendum I lost by a margin of 52% to 47%.

It’s unclear how much of an impact the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling had on voters in the states that had ballot measures banning same-sex marriage, but the election results generally were a demonstration that, at the very least, same-sex marriage was not a defining issue of the 2006 election cycle, nor was it even close to being a defining issue.

The biggest news about the slate of propositions on he California ballot this year was that there were quite a number of expectations defied.

None of the big infrastructure measures fell. In fact, most passed with comfortable margins. The conventional wisdom was that voters were going to be too wary of big-ticket spending to give the measures their okay. The other conventional wisdom was that there was just too much information to absorb about all of the infrastructure measures. The thinking seemed to be that all of the measures would cancel each other out.
On the other hand, none of the other measures on the ballot did well — except for Proposition 83, which never had any significant opposition. The two biggest-ticket measures, Propositions 86 and 87, failed at the polls by significant margins. The parental notification and eminent domain measures, Propositions 85 and 90, which were both expected to pass, failed as well.

Dan Morain of the Los Angeles Times, who covered the money side of the ballot measure campaigns, pointed out in a November 9 article that in almost all of the campaigns, the side with the most money to spend won. In the case of Proposition 87 alone, both sides spent more than $150 million, making the alternative energy initiative by far the most expensive ballot measure in US history.

Our handy cheat sheets of election results for statewide races are now live.

Check out our page of ballot measure and major statewide officeholder results.

We’ve also posted a page of detailed statewide officeholder results, including the tallies for all minor-party candidates.

Also, don’t forget our page of campaign finance figures. It’s a one-stop resource that will tell you where all the big money funding supporters and opponents of the ballot measures came from.

More resources to come, shortly. Stay tuned.

Proposition 90 has been going back and forth all evening. As of now, with 38% of all precincts reporting, the noes have the slight edge: 51-49%.

Both of the big-money measures appear on their way down to defeat. Proposition 86 is at 54-46%. Proposition 87 is at 57-43%, which if it holds will be a truly humiliating margin for the measure’s backers.

The 1A-1E group of propositions seems to be doing well enough at the polls to win. With almost 40% of all precincts reporting, the numbers are as follows:

• Proposition 1A: 77-24% yes

• Proposition 1B: 60-40% yes

• Proposition 1C: 56-44% yes

• Proposition 1D: 53-47% yes

• Proposition 1E: 63-37% yes

The other big bond measure, Proposition 84, seems to be strugglng to hang on, with 52% voting yes and 48% voting no thus far.

Wondering why you’ve not heard much about Proposition 88 lately? Or anything at all? While Governor Schwarzenegger and other California political bigshots are cruising up and down the state stumping hard for Proposition 1D, the education infrastructure bond, what you’re hearing on Proposition 88, the other education-related measure on the ballot, is the sound of crickets.

Proposition 88 would impose a $50 parcel tax on most private property in the state to fund $470 million in school improvement programs. $85 million of that total would go to facility lease costs, but according to the state Legislative Analyst’s Office, conditions on the use of the money would mean that only 140 schools statewide would ever get the facility lease funds.

A post on the SFGate politics blog points out that major California education groups didn’t like Proposition 88 competing with Proposition 1D from the beginning, and they formed an unlikely alliance with groups like the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association in opposition to the measure. The effect of the education groups’ opposition was, in the words of the post, to seal the measure’s doom.

And that was before the proposition’s biggest financial backer, Silicon Valley philanthropic group EdVoice, pulled $500,000 from the Proposition 88 campaign and gave it instead to Proposition 1D. Initially, venture capitalist John Doerr (who has given close to $1 million to the backers of proposition 87) and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings gave money to the committees supporting the measure, but they stopped donating once it became apparent that the measure was going to lose, according to an October 31 article in the Orange County Register.

The most recent polls on Proposition 88 show it with anywhere between 42 and 52% support. Nonetheless, as one opponent of the measure was quoted in the Orange County Register article as saying, “Even dead people win elections. It would be foolhardy to assume it’s going to fail.”

According to the new Field Poll, Proposition 90 may not be in the enviable position that the Polimetrix poll released a couple of days ago indicated. The Field Poll shows Proposition 90 at 42-35% oppose.

The Field Poll’s Mark DiCamillo suggests in a San Diego Union-Tribune article that voters haven’t been persuaded that Proposition 90 is necessary:

It’s one of those propositions that voters are really having a hard time coming to grips with. They don’t really know what the implications are when they’re passing something like this. When you’re in that kind of predicament and you’re not really sure what it will do, the safer vote is the “no” vote.

If this trend holds, it will be another huge story, because not only have there been constant flows of big money to back Proposition 90, but almost every news report on the measure since the summer has predicted that it would pass, and with flying colors.

A new public opinion survey by KTVU-TV and the Field Poll shows continued deteriorating support for three of the major propositions:

• Proposition 85: 46-43% yes

• Proposition 86: 45-45% yes

• Proposition 87: 44-40% no

If Proposition 87 loses in spite of all of the money and political capital that have spent to promote it, including months of TV ads and numerous public appearances by Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and assorted celebrities (everyone from Julia Roberts to Robert Redford to Eva Longoria), it will be one of the big stories of the election year.

Proposition 84’s biggest obstacle to passing is not negative ads or well-funded opposition (there is no organized opposition). According to a Scripps Howard News article yesterday, it’s that same phenomenon that keeps popping up with all of the bond measures on the ballot: voters see the price tag and shy away, and all of the bond measures cancel one another out.

The article cites the two most recent polls on Proposition 84 (Field Poll and PPIC) to demonstrate that the measure is struggling at anywhere between 40% and 50% support, which is not likely to be a strong enough showing for passage, despite endorsements from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dianne Feinstein, Antonio Villaraigosa, and other heavyweights.

An October 20 article in the Capital Press Agricultural Weekly, an industry newspaper, notes that Proposition 84 would have more support from California agricultural interests if it were more of a water resource measure and less of a parks-and-recreation measure. Nonetheless, the measure would generate an estimated 1 million to 1.2 million acre feet of water statewide, and it would provide $100 million for the restoration of salmon fisheries on the San Joaquin River below Fresno’s Friant Dam.

An Associated Press article uses the town of Gilroy in southern Santa Clara County as a test case of the worries that rural areas of the state have about Proposition 83, which would essentially force most sex offenders to look for places to live that have less political clout than cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, which are able to close off most of their land area to sex offenders because of the large number of schools and parks within their boundaries. Some of the concerns of Gilroy and other rural communities about Proposition 83 include a relative lack of social services resources for sex offenders and the risk that law enforcement resources will be stretched thin by a mandate to track and monitor a notoriously difficult-to-track population.

According to a draft report obtained by the Associated Press from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Division of Adult Parole Operations, Proposition 83, if it passes, will require the relocation of 2400 sex offenders in Los Angeles County alone. A recent Los Angeles Times article summarized Iowa’s experience with a similar law that was passed in 2002 and upheld by the state supreme court in 2005. Since that law went into effect, and since the greater Des Moines area passed ordinances that are even more restirictive than the state law, 98% of the greater Des Moines area is off-limits to residency for sex offenders.

It’s worth noting that the Desert Sun, a newspaper that serves Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, where a lot of sex offenders could theoretically be compelled to move, supports Proposition 83 in an editorial published today. Similarly, the Napa Valley Register recommended a “yes” vote on October 17, saying that any misgivings about the measure are “overshadowed by the damage done by those who commit felony sexual offenses.”

On the other hand, the Merced Sun-Star on October 25 recommended a “no” vote, editorializing that:

In other states, [laws like Proposition 83] have backfired, pushing sex offenders into sparsely populated rural and suburban neighborhoods where law enforcement is thin and where counseling, psychiatric and other social services that many mentally disordered offenders need are in short supply or nonexistent. The same is likely to happen in California.

This post is a plug for a series of programs that the public radio station KQED-FM show “Forum with Michael Krasny” has been broadcasting on several of the ballot measures. The links below lead to pages with RealMedia live streams and podcast downloads of each program.

The broadcasts so far include:

• Proposition 83

• Proposition 85

• Proposition 87

• Proposition 89

• Proposition 90

The “Forum” website’s audio archive also has a number of other informative podcasts on the election, including candidate forums (including lieutenant governor, secretary of state, insurance commissioner, and attorney general) and a discussion of the state’s bond indebtedness.

According to the Polimetrix poll that was cited in an earlier post, Propositions 85 and 88 are faltering, with 51-42% opposing the parental notification measure and 60-31% opposing the education parcel tax. Proposition 89, the campaign finance reform measure supported primarily by the California Nurses’ Association, is also in trouble, with 52-35% opposing it.

Propositions 86 and 87 are apparently doing surprisingly well, given the amount of money that has been spent by opponents of each measure. Proposition 86 has 49-47% support and Proposition 87 has 49-44% support.

Robert Salladay of the Los Angeles Times writes on his blog today about a new poll by Polimetrix, a polling outfit headed by Stanford political science professor Douglas Rivers, which shows some unsurprising results — Schwarzenegger ahead of Angelides by 10 points, for instance — and some surprising ones, including what appears to be an unstoppable juggernaut in the form of Proposition 90, which the Polimetrix survey has at 58-28% support — a 30-point margin.

The governor came out today opposing Proposition 90, although it seems unclear what effect, if any, the late showing of his hand in this particular card game will have on the end result.

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article today about Stephen Bing, the primary backer of Proposition 87. Bing has now given $49.5 million in support of the alternative energy initiative, the largest amount ever donated by a single individual to a campaign in US history.

Total spending on the Yes and No on 87 campaigns has now reached an astronomical $142 million, according to the Los Angeles Times. Most of the No on 87 cash has come from oil companies like Chevron, Aera Energy (a coalition of ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell), and Occidental Oil.

According to the Initiative and Referendum Institute at USC, there are a total of 208 propositions on the ballot in 37 states nationwide this year, which is an increase from the 162 propositions on the ballot nationwide in 2004. California has the third-highest number of propositions on the ballot, with Colorado (14 propositions) and Arizona (19 propositions) coming in second and first. The most pervasive issues on the ballot this year are eminent domain (13 states), tobacco and smoking-related measures (10 states), and same-sex marriage (9 states).

Outside of California, several measures are being watched closely. These include:

• Referred Law 6 in South Dakota, which would repeal the state’s ban on abortion that was signed into law by Governor Mike Rounds in March.

• Four measures on the Arizona ballot are related to illegal immigration. The measures would deny state services to illegal aliens (Ballot Measure 300), deny them bail in felony circumstances (Ballot Measure 100), deny them punitive damages in civil lawsuits (Ballot Measure 102), and establish English as the state’s official language (Ballot Measure 103).

• Proposal 2 on the Michigan ballot would prohibit the University of Michigan and other state universities from “using affirmative action programs that give preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment, education or contracting purposes.”

Update: There’s a good article in the October 30 San Francisco Chronicle about Michigan’s Proposal 2, pointing out its similarities (including sponsorship) to California’s Proposition 209, which was passed almost exactly 10 years ago.

Robert Salladay of the Los Angeles Times and Shane Goldmacher at The California Observer blog today both cite a new poll by J. Moore Methods gauging support for Propositions 1A-1E.

The poll shows all five measures are holding on to slim majority support or close to it. Proposition 1A has the highest support at 56-21%. Proposition 1E follows close behind at 55-31%. The other three bonds don’t fare quite as well. Proposition 1C is at 54-32%, 1D is at 52-34%, and 1B looks least likely to pass, with 50-36% support.

As Bill Bradley notes on his blog, the fact that the measures are stabilized at or slightly above 50% support is no guarantee of success. He cites what happened to the Rob Reiner-sponsored Proposition 82, which would have funded preschool for every child in California, and to Proposition 81, the 2006 library bond measure. Both looked like sure bets to pass according to most polls taken before the election; both failed to pass. (Proposition 82 in particular lost by a startlingly wide margin, 61-39%).

As Bradley observes:

While the measures are there to be won, they are also in dangerous territory. Finance-related initiatives that are hovering at or around 50% two weeks before a California election usually lose.

California currently taxes cigarettes at 87 cents per pack, which places the state tax at 22nd-highest among the states. The money from the tax currently goes to (1) the general fund, (2) to obligations incurred by Proposition 99 (the Tobacco Tax and Health Promotion Act of 1988), (3) to childhood development programs authorized by Proposition 10 (the California Children and Families First Initiative of 1998), and (4) to a breast cancer research fund established by the Legislature in 1994. The state raises approximately $1.094 billion in revenue from the tobacco tax each year, according to the California Budget Project.

Proposition 86, if it passed, would make California the state with the highest tobacco tax in the nation, at $3.47 per pack. A recent Orange County Register article points out that smokers could drive to Arizona or Nevada to buy cigarettes (where cigarette taxes are $1.18 and 98 cents per pack respectively) if Proposition 86 becomes law. They could also turn to the black market, as happened in New York when the state raised its cigarette tax to $3 per pack.

The California Budget Project confirms that the tax envisioned by Proposition 86 could be regressive, in that it would have the most significant impact on low-income consumers. Low-income consumers would spend 0.9% of their income on the tax if it passed. Taxpayers in the top 1% would spend 0.01% of their income on the tax.

Proponents counter that low-income consumers would benefit from the health programs that the tax would help fund, and they also contend that low-income consumers would be more likely to stop smoking as a result of the higher cost of buying cigarettes.

The California Budget Project has issued a comprehensive report on the potential economic and other impacts of the ballot measure.

Several recent articles give the in-depth treatment to Proposition 1D, the educational infrastructure ballot measure.

The San Francisco Chronicle notes that whether Proposition 1D passes or not, “California will have to build more than 12 new classrooms each day for five years — about 22,500 in all — to accommodate rising enrollment, mainly in the Central Valley and San Bernardino and Riverside counties, says the state Office of Public School Construction.”

The San Diego Union Tribune says that under Proposition 1D, “The University of California would get $890 million, including $200 million to expand telemedicine facilities to assist and train physicians — especially in specialized medical care — in underserved areas. California State University would receive $690 million.” (According to a recent Berkeleyan article, the $890 million would include “$28.6 million for improvements to [UC Berkeley] campus facilities, including infrastructure improvements to Birge Hall, renovations to Durant Hall, and initial efforts to address seismic and program deficiencies in Campbell Hall.”)

A recent Sacramento Bee article adds that the state Office of Public School Construction says that nearly 300 school renovation projects are on hold throughout the state because of lack of funds. Proposition 1D would give $7.3 billion to K-12 schools.

According to an October 4 Contra Costa Times article, the two bond measures that seem to be polling least successfully among likely voters, Propositions 1B and 1D, would also be the most expensive if implemented. As Ethan Rarick, director of the Center on Politics at the Institute of Governmental Studies, observed, “$10 billion and $19 billion [the costs of each measure respectively] are just big numbers that scare voters.”