This is Bal­lot Watch. Today is the sev­enth in the series of arti­cles on the upcom­ing bal­lot ini­tia­tives and some key local elec­tions. Some of these will cover top­ics in com­mon with mul­ti­ple states, while oth­ers will look at a state level.

For today’s Bal­lot Watch, I’m cov­er­ing the West Coast…and Ari­zona and Nevada. Why Ari­zona and Nevada? In try­ing to bal­ance the regions some­what so that all three of Log­a­rchism’s reg­u­lar writ­ers get a fair share of the coun­try, the states touch­ing the Pacific Ocean weren’t quite enough. And so Ari­zona and Nevada are in the mix.

So what do the bal­lots look like in these seven states? Noth­ing of inter­est in Alaska or Hawaii, but the other five have tales to tell. 

Ari­zona

Ari­zona is a wild west state, and has got­ten wilder over the past decade.

Recall that Gov­er­nor Jan Brewer ini­tially became Gov­er­nor when her pre­de­ces­sor, Janet Napoli­tano, was tapped by Pres­i­dent Obama to be the Sec­re­tary of Home­land Secu­rity. Brewer was Sec­re­tary of State at the time, and that made her sec­ond in line for Gov­er­nor (Ari­zona has no Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor). Brewer polled poorly against Demo­c­ra­tic Attor­ney Gen­eral Terry God­dard ini­tially, but momen­tum shifted when she got behind ALEC-​​drafted Sen­ate Bill 1070, which passed in part because of pub­lic out­cry when Robert Krentz was mur­dered near the bor­der with Mex­ico. That man had been known to give water to peo­ple enter­ing the coun­try ille­gally. God­dard opposed SB 1070, and he lost sup­port from then on. Brewer isn’t up for elec­tion, but this story should give a lit­tle back­ground for some of the other descrip­tions below.

You may recall Pinal County Sher­iff Paul Babeau, who got in hot water when he was accused of black­mail­ing his ille­gal immi­grant gay lover. Charges were dropped against him in late August. He was going to run for a seat in Con­gress before this all blew up. He did choose to run again for Pinal County Sher­iff, and won the pri­mary. He’s likely to retain his job.

And of course there’s Mari­copa County Sher­iff Joe Arpaio, who was really pop­u­lar among Ari­zo­nans for his treat­ment of pris­on­ers (pink under­wear, cheap rations, manda­tory work). But then he started to get in trou­ble for alle­ga­tions of mis­use of pub­lic funds, and crim­i­nally fil­ing charges against a sit­ting county judge. The FBI dropped the charges at the end of August. In the interim, every time there was a big story about to break on the inves­ti­ga­tion, he’d pull out a press con­fer­ence to talk about the birther stuff. It became a joke among Mari­copa County res­i­dents, because it hap­pened every sin­gle time. And, as it looked as if the FBI was going to for­mally indict him, he ramped up his Big Birther event, fea­tur­ing Pat Boone. Now that the charges have been dropped, so, too, has the event. He’s still look­ing for­ward to imple­ment­ing the “show your papers” part of SB 1070, and the almost guar­an­teed law­suits that will follow.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 1 is a merely shrunken ver­sion of its pre­de­ces­sor, owing to Arizona’s gain of a House seat in the lat­est reap­por­tion­ment. Part of the ter­ri­tory that was cut out con­tains the res­i­dence of incum­bent fresh­man Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Gosar (R-​​Flagstaff), who will almost cer­tainly be reëlected to rep­re­sent the new Dis­trict 4. Repub­li­can for­mer state Sen­a­tor Jonathan Paton will face off against Gosar’s pre­de­ces­sor, for­mer Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ann Kirk­patrick (D-​​Flagstaff). Dis­trict 1 has long been close, though its PVI is R+3. But Kirk­patrick has raised more than two dol­lars for each dol­lar Paton has raised, and has far more money left in reserves. In fact, she has more money left in her reserves than Paton has raised alto­gether. This gives the edge to Kirkpatrick.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 2, a shrunken ver­sion of the old Dis­trict 8, is the dis­trict for­merly rep­re­sented by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gabirelle Gif­fords, and cur­rently rep­re­sented by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Bar­ber (D-​​Tucson). Bar­ber faces off against retired Air Force Colonel Martha McSally. Bar­ber has out­raised McSally by a four-​​to-​​one mar­gin, and has the immensely pop­u­lar Giffords’s endorse­ment. Bar­ber is likely to give McSally a seri­ous buz­z­cut and win reëlec­tion in this R+2 district.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 3 is newly-​​drawn from parts of old Dis­tricts 3 and 7. Con­ser­v­a­tive activist Gabriela Saucedo Mer­cer is the Repub­li­can can­di­date run­ning against incum­bent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Raúl Gri­jalva (D-​​Tucson). Mer­cer is the one who said Mid­dle East­ern immi­grants should be banned from the US. Brewer abruptly backed out on attend­ing a Sep­tem­ber 11 fundraiser for her. It wouldn’t have mat­tered, really; Dis­trict 3 is heav­ily Demo­c­ra­tic, with a PVI of D+7, and Gri­jalva has out­raised Mer­cer by a four-​​to-​​one mar­gin. He should have no dif­fi­culty keep­ing his job.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 9 is Arizona’s brand new dis­trict, carved out of a piece of the old Dis­trict 5. It con­sists mostly of Tempe, with a sprin­kling of south Scotts­dale and north Phoenix in the mix. This makes it geo­graph­i­cally sig­nif­i­cantly more lib­eral than the old Dis­trict 5, and Demo­c­ra­tic for­mer state Sen­a­tor Kyrsten Sinema has out­raised Repub­li­can for­mer Par­adise Val­ley Mayor Ver­non Parker by a three-​​to-​​one mar­gin. The district’s PVI is EVEN, but Sinema should have the edge in this election.

It’s worth not­ing that, in all of the con­tentious House seats in con­ser­v­a­tive Ari­zona, the Democ­rats have the upper hand. Of course, Ari­zona Democ­rats aren’t New York Democrats.

Ari­zona has nine bal­lot mea­sures this time around, five of which are wor­thy of mention.

Propo­si­tion 114 is sort of a “stand your ground” for civil law. If passed, crime vic­tims would be immu­nized against dam­ages they cause those who com­mit­ted the crimes against them. It’s an inter­est­ing idea, and should pass eas­ily in this wild west state.

Propo­si­tion 117 is an echo of California’s 1978 Propo­si­tion 13. Propo­si­tion 117 would limit prop­erty tax increases by cap­ping the poten­tial annual increase in assessed value.

Propo­si­tion 120 is Arizona’s ver­sion of Utah’s Rage­gush Rebel­lion, though at an ini­tia­tive level. If passed, it would declare Arizona’s sov­er­eignty over nat­ural resources, though it remains to be seen whether such a dec­la­ra­tion would stand up in fed­eral court. Like 114, and for the same rea­sons, this should pass easily.

Propo­si­tion 121 would turn Arizona’s pri­mary elec­tions into “jun­gle pri­maries”. The impact in Cal­i­for­nia hasn’t been quite as sig­nif­i­cant as many pre­vi­ously thought, so it may not make much of a dif­fer­ence what hap­pens with this ini­tia­tive. Nonethe­less, it’s a sign that peo­ple are increas­ingly tir­ing of the hyper­par­ti­san nature of Congress.

Propo­si­tion 204 would extend the one-​​percent sales tax increase passed in 2010, which is oth­er­wise sched­uled to expire on Jan­u­ary 1, 2013. For what­ever rea­son, taxes of this sort tend to pass in Ari­zona; I’d expect this one to pass, too.

Cal­i­for­nia

California’s Con­gres­sional Dis­tricts were redrawn this time by a non­par­ti­san cit­i­zens’ com­mis­sion, which will undoubt­edly ben­e­fit Repub­li­cans, since past redis­trict­ing was han­dled by Democ­rats in the state Leg­is­la­ture. This change accounts for the sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of close Con­gres­sional races in Cal­i­for­nia this year.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 7 is made up by parts of the old Dis­tricts 3 and 7, the for­mer rep­re­sented by Dan Lun­gren (R-​​Gold River). The new, more com­pact dis­trict has more of east­ern Sacra­mento in it, mak­ing it more mod­er­ate than the cur­rent Dis­trict 3. He is run­ning against Demo­c­rat Ami Bera, a first-​​generation Amer­i­can doc­tor. The new dis­trict bound­aries make it well bal­anced between urban lib­er­als and rural con­ser­v­a­tives, mak­ing this a bit of a tough race to hand­i­cap. Lun­gren has the advan­tage of name recog­ni­tion, though — he has been active in Cal­i­for­nia pol­i­tics for decades — and he gar­nered almost 53 per­cent of the vote in the pri­mary elec­tion. Bera has a slight edge in fundrais­ing, with a 16 per­cent edge. Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics calls this a tossup. I’m more inclined to say that it leans in Lungren’s favor, par­tic­u­larly since its PVI is R+3.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 9 is made up of parts of the old Dis­tricts 9, 10, and 11. From old Dis­trict 11 hails Jerry McN­er­ney (D-​​Pleasanton), who is opposed by Repub­li­can Ricky Gill. Cur­rently, all three of the old dis­tricts have Demo­c­ra­tic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, which would lead one to believe that this should be a slam-​​dunk for McN­er­ney. How­ever, a look at the pri­mary elec­tion, where the two Repub­li­can can­di­dates split 52 per­cent of the vote, and its PVI of D+2, sug­gest that this race is likely to be closer than one would oth­er­wise think. This is par­tic­u­larly true when one con­sid­ers that Gill has raised slightly more money than McNerney.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 10 is com­prised of pieces of the old Dis­tricts 10, 18, and 19, and has a PVI of R+5. Jeff Den­ham (R-​​Atwater) cur­rently rep­re­sents Dis­trict 19. He’s run­ning against for­mer NASA astro­naut José Hernán­dez. Though the old Dis­tricts 10 and 18 were ger­ry­man­dered to send Democ­rats to Wash­ing­ton, the new bor­ders make Dis­trict 10 far more rural, and thus more likely to go Repub­li­can. Den­ham cap­tured 49 per­cent of the vote in the pri­mary elec­tion, and can be expected to crest above 50 in the gen­eral. Den­ham has also out­raised Hernán­dez by a more than two-​​to-​​one mar­gin. It’s not a sure thing, but it seems more likely that Den­ham will con­tinue to serve in the House.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 24, which is mostly a major expan­sion of the old Dis­trict 23 encom­pass­ing a good chunk of the old Dis­trict 24, is a bat­tle between Dis­trict 23 incum­bent Lois Capps (D-​​Santa Bar­bara) and Repub­li­can Abel Mal­don­ado, who was Gov­er­nor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor. Dis­trict 23 was a sliver of very lib­eral coast­line. With the redis­trict­ing, the ter­ri­tory is more bal­anced between the lib­eral coast and the con­ser­v­a­tive inte­rior. Capps cap­tured 46 per­cent of the pri­mary elec­tion votes, while 51 per­cent were split between two Repub­li­can can­di­dates. On the other hand, it’s a D+3 dis­trict, and Capps has out­raised Mal­don­ado by a two-​​to-​​one mar­gin. This could go either way, as the new dis­trict encom­passes sub­stan­tial swaths of old Dis­tricts 24 and 22, both of whom are cur­rently rep­re­sented by Republicans.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 26 is made up of parts of old Dis­tricts 24, 26, and 27, and has a PVI of D+2. There are no incum­bents in this race, as the one pos­si­ble incum­bent of the three dis­tricts, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Elton Gal­l­egy (R-​​Simi Val­ley), is retir­ing. Repub­li­can State Sen­a­tor Tony Strick­land is bat­tling it out against Demo­c­ra­tic Assem­bly­woman Julia Brown­ley for this seat. Strick­land gar­nered 44 per­cent of the pri­mary votes, while Demo­c­ra­tic can­di­dates split 38 per­cent. The remain­ing 18 per­cent went to inde­pen­dent can­di­date Linda Parks, who rep­re­sents the 2nd Dis­trict in Ven­tura County. Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics thinks Strick­land has a bet­ter chance, and his out­rais­ing Brown­ley by a 1.5:1 mar­gin sup­ports this.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 41 in the Inland Empire is com­prised of parts of the old Dis­tricts 41 and 44, both of whom are cur­rently rep­re­sented by Repub­li­cans. The new 41 is much more com­pact, and thus much more urban, than either of the old dis­tricts. This turns it into a D+3 dis­trict. That said, the Inland Empire is more con­ser­v­a­tive than the coast — par­tic­u­larly this area, which includes March Air Force Base — so it’s not like we’re talk­ing about San Fran­cisco here. This incumbent-​​free dis­trict saw three Repub­li­cans and two Democ­rats bat­tle in the pri­mary, with Demo­c­rat Mark Takano and Repub­li­can John Tavaglione emerg­ing as the two win­ners. Col­lec­tively, Democ­rats got 45 per­cent of the vote, while Repub­li­cans got 55. Both can­di­dates have raised about the same amount of money, but Tavaglione has more still in reserve. Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics says this dis­trict leans Demo­c­ra­tic, but I’m not so sure about that. I’d call this a tossup.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 47 includes Long Beach and parts of Orange County, ter­ri­tory that was part of old Dis­tricts 37 and 47, and has a PVI of D+5. Both Dis­tricts are cur­rently rep­re­sented by Democ­rats, though neither’s Rep­re­sen­ta­tive lives within the bound­aries of the new Dis­trict 47. Instead, we have two new­com­ers: Demo­c­ra­tic state Sen­a­tor Alan Lowen­thal and Repub­li­can Gary DeLong. Demo­c­ra­tic and Repub­li­can can­di­dates split the votes almost per­fectly in the pri­mary elec­tion, but this ter­ri­tory leans more Demo­c­ra­tic than Repub­li­can. I sus­pect the name recog­ni­tion Lowen­thal has and the slight Demo­c­ra­tic lean will be enough to push him over the edge to vic­tory, though DeLong has out­raised Lowen­thal by nearly two-​​to-​​one.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 52, made up of parts of old Con­gres­sional Dis­tricts 50 and 52, is a bat­tle between Dis­trict 50 incum­bent Brian Bil­bray (R-​​Carlsbad) and Demo­c­ra­tic for­mer San Diego city coun­cil­man Scott Peters over this D+1 ter­ri­tory. Repub­li­cans got 49 per­cent of the votes in the pri­mary, and Democ­rats 51, but Bil­bray cap­tured 41 per­cent by him­self. San Diego is bipo­lar, with con­ser­v­a­tive mil­i­tary cou­pled with lib­eral coastal urban sorts, and this ter­ri­tory leans a lit­tle more toward the lat­ter than the for­mer. Peters has the lead in fundrais­ing, but he has been spend­ing as fast as he is rais­ing, and has lit­tle left; Bil­bray still has half his warch­est remain­ing. This race could go either way, though Peters has a razor-​​thin edge.

Cal­i­for­nia also has 11 bal­lot mea­sures. We already dis­cussed three of them — Propo­si­tions 30, 38, and 39 — in the Bal­lot Watch on Taxes. And we cov­ered Propo­si­tion 32 in the Bal­lot Watch on Unions. Of the remain­ing eight, four are wor­thy of fur­ther examination.

Propo­si­tion 34 would abol­ish the death penalty in Cal­i­for­nia, and would con­vert the sen­tences of all 725 death-​​row inmates to life in prison with­out parole. Those pris­on­ers would be required to work in the prison sys­tem, with their earn­ings going to their crime vic­tims. Propo­si­tion 34 would inval­i­date 1978’s Propo­si­tion 7 (it was on the same bal­lot as its more famous sib­ling, Propo­si­tion 13), which rein­stated the death penalty in Cal­i­for­nia. Only 13 inmates have been exe­cuted in the 34 years since Propo­si­tion 7 passed. Cal­i­for­ni­ans were enthu­si­as­tic about the death penalty ini­tially, but that has waned in the years since. As Cal­i­for­nia gov­ern­ment has spent more money on pris­ons, the state has spent less on edu­ca­tion. For this rea­son, crim­i­nal penalty reform has gained momen­tum in the Golden State. This is also a motive for…

Propo­si­tion 36, another crime ini­tia­tive, which would mod­ify, though not elim­i­nate, the three-​​strikes law. As it stands today, any third felony con­vic­tion is a life sen­tence. Propo­si­tion 36 would require the third felony to be “seri­ous or vio­lent”. The sav­ings of $90 mil­lion per year makes this more compelling.

Propo­si­tion 37 would require all food prod­ucts con­tain­ing genet­i­cally mod­i­fied organ­isms be labeled as such. Cal­i­for­nia has a his­tory of strong label­ing; in 1986, Cal­i­for­ni­ans passed Propo­si­tion 65, which requires label­ing of all haz­ardous mate­ri­als in pub­lic places. This, too, could pass.

Propo­si­tion 40 is a ref­er­en­dum on the state Sen­ate dis­trict map drawn up by the cit­i­zen com­mi­sion. It’s a com­plete waste of everyone’s time, since the group orig­i­nally opposed to the map have with­drawn their opposition…but it’s too late to remove this ref­er­en­dum from the ballot.

Nevada

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 3 is cur­rently rep­re­sented by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Joe Heck (R-​​Henderson, who won the seat in 2010 by a half point. With reap­por­tion­ment gain­ing Nevada a fourth seat in the House, the redrawn Dis­trict 3 loses its north­east­ern por­tion to the newly-​​created Dis­trict 4, and gains ter­ri­tory to the west from a part of the old Dis­trict 2. The old ter­ri­tory had a PVI of D+3, and it should be a touch bluer now. Heck is run­ning against Demo­c­rat John Oceguera, and the increas­ingly lib­eral dis­trict could well go to the chal­lenger this time. That said, Heck has raised a heck of a lot more, at nearly a two-​​to-​​one ratio. The money and the name recog­ni­tion may be enough to keep Heck in the House.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 4, cre­ated through reap­por­tion­ment, carves a big chunk out of the old Dis­trict 2 (PVI R+5), plus the north­east­ern cor­ner of the old Dis­trict 3 (PVI D+2). Demo­c­ra­tic state Sen­ate Major­ity Leader Steven Hors­ford is run­ning against Danny Tarkan­ian, who most recently came in third in the Repub­li­can pri­mary for Harry Reid’s Sen­ate seat. Hors­ford has out­raised Tarkan­ian by about 1.5:1. It’s hard to tell who’s in the lead here, given so many con­flict­ing forces.

Ore­gon

Ore­gon has nine bal­lot mea­sures this time, seven of which are inter­est­ing enough to cover. We already cov­ered Mea­sure 80 in the Bal­lot Watch on Mar­i­juana.

Mea­sure 79 is about real estate trans­fer taxes. Cur­rent law pro­hibits such taxes in Ore­gon, but Mea­sure 79 would cod­ify that law in the state con­sti­tu­tion. It seems a lit­tle dra­con­ian to me.

Mea­sure 81 is a sec­ond try at ban­ning gill­net fish­ing in Ore­gon; a sim­i­lar mea­sure failed in 2010. Oppo­nents are con­cerned that it will merely drive gill­net fish­ers to Wash­ing­ton, hurt­ing Ore­gon indus­try with­out hav­ing an appre­cia­ble impact on the use of gillnets.

Mea­sures 82 and 83 would allow gam­bling in the state. Mea­sure 82 would allow privately-​​owned casi­nos, while 83 would specif­i­cally allow a sin­gle privately-​​owned casino in Mult­nomah county. Oppo­nents of these mea­sures claim that pri­vate casi­nos would hurt tribal revenues.

Mea­sure 84 would phase out state estate and inher­i­tance taxes over a four-​​year period.

Mea­sure 85 is an unusual ini­tia­tive. Cur­rently, if Ore­gon receives 102 per­cent or more of expected cor­po­rate and/​or excise tax rev­enues, the excess must be refunded to those who paid the taxes. If Mea­sure 85 passes, it would take those excess rev­enues and apply them to K-​​12 pub­lic education.

Wash­ing­ton

This year, the Gov­er­noris up for elec­tion. Incum­bent Chris­tine Gre­goire, who took office after a con­tentious 2004 elec­tion in which the final tally had her win­ning by 133 votes (out of over 2.5 mil­lion cast), has cho­sen not to run for a third term. Instead, Dis­trict 1’s Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jay Inslee (D-​​Mountlake Ter­race) resigned to run as her replace­ment. He is opposed by Repub­li­can Attor­ney Gen­eral Rob McKenna. Both can­di­dates are pop­u­lar in the state, and this has been a fierce bat­tle. A total of $10 mil­lion has been spent on neg­a­tive adver­tis­ing, as each has attempted to tear the other down in a bid for the Governor’s Man­sion. But the ads are com­ing from sur­ro­gates, giv­ing the can­di­dates a fig leaf. McKenna opposed the Oba­macare indi­vid­ual man­date, and joined the law­suit against it; he is there­fore being painted as a generic Repub­li­can. Inslee voted in favor of Oba­macare, and the ARRA stim­u­lus bill; he is there­fore being painted as a generic Demo­c­rat. Polls have shown a tight race, but Inslee leads in the most recent poll, con­ducted by Elway. Given the over­all direc­tion in Wash­ing­ton this year, I sus­pect Inslee will win by a point or two.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 1 is expand­ing in ter­ri­tory well to the north, to the Cana­dian bor­der, as part of redis­trict­ing. This will make the dis­trict more com­pet­i­tive than it has been his­tor­i­cally, when it had a PVI of D+9. Repub­li­can John Koster won the spe­cial elec­tion to serve out the remain­der of Inslee’s term. He is run­ning against for­mer Microsoft Vice Pres­i­dent Suzan Del­Bene, who attempted, but failed, to defeat Dave Reichert (R-​​Bellevue) in the 8th Dis­trict in 2010. Del­Bene has out­raised, and out­spent, Koster by an aston­ish­ing five-​​to-​​one ratio. This, plus the demo­graphic makeup of Dis­trict 1, should give Del­Bene a decent chance, but the out­come is far from cer­tain; the lone poll taken at the end of may put Koster ahead by 17 points.

Wash­ing­ton has eight bal­lot mea­sures this Novem­ber; only three are really inter­est­ing, and all are men­tioned else­where at Log­a­rchism:

Ini­tia­tive 1185, the Tim Eyman fla­vor of the month, was already cov­ered in the Bal­lot Watch on Taxes.

Ref­er­en­dum 74, which will be cov­ered in greater detail in two days in the Bal­lot Watch on Same-​​sex Mar­riage, gives the vot­ers a chance to over­turn a recently-​​passed state law per­mit­ting same-​​sex mar­riage in Washington.

Ini­tia­tive 502, the mar­i­juana ini­tia­tive, was already cov­ered in the Bal­lot Watch on Mar­i­juana.

Related arti­cles