This is Bal­lot Watch. Today is the eighth 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 a chunk of the North­east­ern states — Con­necti­cut, Maine, Mass­a­chu­setts, New Hamp­shire, and New Jer­sey. Ver­mont does not seem par­tic­u­larly note­wor­thy this year. Rhode Island and New York are par­tic­u­larly busy; I’ll cover them in a future arti­cle. There’s quite a num­ber of vacant seats, mostly due to redis­trict­ing. Jump into the com­ments and give us your thoughts. We encour­age any­one who lives in the area or is uniquely famil­iar with it to give on-​​the-​​site reac­tions and reportage.

Con­necti­cut

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 5, in the north­west cor­ner of the state, is an open seat. The incum­bent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Christo­pher Mur­phy (D-​​Cheshire), is vacat­ing his seat to run for the U.S. Sen­ate. Demo­c­ra­tic state House mem­ber Eliz­a­beth Esty and Repub­li­can Andrew Roraback are run­ning to replace him. Esty is a trans­plant from Oak Park, Illi­nois. She was raised in Min­nesota and grad­u­ated from Winona Senior High School (I had to men­tion these points in her biog­ra­phy for per­sonal rea­sons, hav­ing myself grown up not far from Oak Park and then moved to Min­nesota.) Roraback also served in the Con­necti­cut leg­is­la­ture. His num­ber one pri­or­ity, accord­ing to his web­site, is to “Repeal Obmacare and replace it with market-​​based health care reforms.” Esty is con­cerned with job cre­ation, women’s rights, pro­tect­ing seniors, and a num­ber of envi­ron­men­tal issues. She is sig­nif­i­cantly out-​​fundraising her oppo­nent, more than 3-​​to-​​1, hav­ing raised over $2 mil­lion to Roraback’s $570,000.

Maine

There are five inter­est­ing bal­lot mea­sures in Maine. In some ways, they seem to run counter to move­ments in other states. Do these mea­sures indi­cate a change in national con­scious­ness, or are then an indi­ca­tion of some­thing spe­cial about Maine? What do you think?

Ques­tion 1 would over­turn a ban on same-​​sex mar­riage in the state. This is an attempt to undo a 2009 bal­lot mea­sure which, in turn, undid a 2009 state law that allowed same-​​sex mar­riage. It isn’t often that a bal­lot ini­tia­tive is cre­ated in sup­port of same-​​sex mar­riage. This is one. The peti­tion drive for this bal­lot mea­sure was orga­nized by a group called Equal­ity Maine. Monotreme will be cov­er­ing this in his Bal­lot Watch on Same-​​sex Marriage.

Ques­tion 2 is an $11 mil­lion bond for higher edu­ca­tion intended to expand the state’s com­mu­nity col­lege sys­tem. The leg­is­la­ture enacted the mea­sure in May, and sent it to the gov­er­nor for a veto or to be placed on the bal­lot for approval by vot­ers. In an era in which edu­ca­tors and pub­lic or public-​​supported edu­ca­tion is being scape­goated for caus­ing use­less state deficits, it will be inter­est­ing to see how this mea­sure plays out.

Ques­tions 3 and 5 both would allow bonds for water and sewer projects in the state. Infra­struc­ture through­out our nation is in dis­re­pair. Changes in pop­u­la­tion and demo­graph­ics also require changes to infra­struc­ture. One project that would be funded is in Wind­ham, Maine, and you can read about it here.

Ques­tion 4 is yet another infra­struc­ture mea­sure, allow­ing for a $51 mil­lion trans­porta­tion bond, mostly for road and bridge repairs in the state. The fate of these bills may serve as an indi­ca­tion of how the nation will think about rebuild­ing its skele­ton. Or will they? Is Maine unique, or does it serve as a bell­wether? As a rule, these sorts of bond bills pass, though.

Mass­a­chu­setts

Mass­a­chu­setts lost one of its ten con­gres­sional dis­tricts in the 2010 cen­sus. The oth­ers have been shuf­fled around. The state is pri­mar­ily Demo­c­ra­tic, and there is really only one con­gres­sional dis­trict where Repub­li­cans hope to have a pickup:

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 6 is rel­a­tively unchanged in geo­graphic extent, occu­py­ing the north­east cor­ner of the state. It has a Cook Par­ti­san Index of D+7. The incum­bent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John F. Tier­ney (D-​​Salem), was first elected to the House in 1996. He sits on the House Com­mit­tee on Edu­ca­tion and Labor, and he sup­ports green energy and increased col­lege access. His oppo­nent is Repub­li­can real­tor Richard Tisei, who has served in the state leg­is­la­ture for 26 years. Tisei argues that “Gov­ern­ment does not cre­ate wealth or jobs,” and “Our econ­omy is being stran­gled by unprece­dented debt, spend­ing, and over-​​regulation.” What is, per­haps, most inter­est­ing about Richard Tisei is that he is a gay Repub­li­can. He had prob­lems with the Repub­li­can national plat­form. Judg­ing by fundrais­ing in this race (right around $1.4 mil­lion each) it’s pretty tight. A poll released on Sep­tem­ber 12 shows Tier­ney ahead by seven points, but Repub­li­cans seem to think this is their best shot at pick­ing up a seat in Massachusetts.

There are three bal­lot mea­sures this year which could, per­haps, only hap­pen in Mass­a­chu­setts. Note that — unlike many other states, but as seems com­mon here in the North­east — these are not con­sti­tu­tional amend­ments. Appar­ently, North­east­ern­ers don’t feel quite as moved to write pol­icy into constitutions.

Ques­tion 1 deals with vehi­cle owner and busi­ness pro­tec­tions in the state. It would require motor vehi­cle man­u­fac­tur­ers to give car own­ers and inde­pen­dent repair facil­i­ties access to the same vehi­cle diag­nos­tic and repair infor­ma­tion that the deal­ers and autho­rized repair facil­i­ties get. It is, there­fore, a con­sumer pro­tec­tion mea­sure that would pro­vide addi­tional infor­ma­tion to own­ers and cor­ner garages.

Ques­tion 2 would allow ter­mi­nally ill patients to request, and be given, lethal drugs. It would estab­lish, accord­ing to the Ques­tion, an “Act Rel­a­tive to Death with Dig­nity”. There are sub­stan­tial pro­tec­tions as part of the Act, includ­ing a require­ment that the patient mak­ing such a request be men­tally com­pe­tent, and must make the request at least twice ver­bally and once in writ­ing, be sub­ject to a wait­ing period, and get a sec­ond doctor’s opin­ion as to competency.

Ques­tion 3 would allow for the use of med­ical mar­i­juana in the state. It is sup­ported by the Amer­i­can Civil Lib­er­ties Union, the Mass­a­chu­setts Patient Advo­cacy Alliance and the Com­mit­tee for Com­pas­sion­ate Med­i­cine. It would elim­i­nate state crim­i­nal and civil penal­ties related to the med­ical use of mar­i­juana, and allow patients who need it to obtain mar­i­juana pro­duced and dis­trib­uted by new state-​​regulated cen­ters or, in case of hardship,to grow mar­i­juana for their own use.

New Hamp­shire

New Hamp­shire has two Con­gres­sional dis­tricts. The smaller of the two, NH-​​1, includes the south­east cor­ner, with Man­ches­ter, Glouces­ter, Nashua, and Rochester. NH-​​2 is more rugged and less densely pop­u­lated. Both have excit­ing rematches.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 1 — with a Cook Par­ti­san rat­ing of EVEN — has a closely-​​fought rematch. Demo­c­rat Carol Shea-​​Porter served two terms in the U.S. House before being defeated by Frank Guinta (R-​​Manchester) in 2010, who had served for two terms as mayor of Man­ches­ter. Guinta claims on his web­site to have “voted for over 30 jobs bills” (this must have hap­pened in his own house, one sup­poses). Shea-​​Porter is a social worker by pro­fes­sion, and an advo­cate of cam­paign finance reform. Guinta has been rais­ing more money, at about $1.4 mil­lion to Shea-Porter’s $800,000. Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics rates the race as a “Toss Up.”

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 2 is larger and some­what more rural than Dis­trict 1, run­ning from the south­west all the way along the west­ern edge to include the north­ern third of the state. It has a Cook rat­ing of D+3. Incum­bent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Charles Bass (R-​​Peterborough) rep­re­sented Dis­trict 2 seat for six terms, from 1996 until 2007. His father, Perkins Bass, also rep­re­sented the same dis­trict. The younger Bass lost the 2006 elec­tion against Demo­c­rat Paul Hodes, who left the House in 2010 for an unsuc­cess­ful Sen­ate run. Bass ran again in 2010 and defeated Demo­c­rat Ann Mclane Kuster. But it wasn’t Kuster’s last stand; she’s back this year. She is an adop­tion attor­ney, a pub­lic pol­icy advo­cate, an author, and an active non­profit vol­un­teer. RCP sees this race as lean­ing to the Demo­c­rat. Fundrais­ing would seem to sup­port this, as Bass is at a sig­nif­i­cant dis­ad­van­tage, $1.4 mil­lion to $2.1 million.

Gov­er­nor

New Hamp­shire held their pri­maries for the open Gov­er­nor­ship on Sep­tem­ber 12. The can­di­dates cho­sen are Repub­li­can Ovide Lam­on­tagne, an attor­ney and for­mer guber­na­to­r­ial and U.S. Sen­ate can­di­date, and Demo­c­ra­tic State Sen­ate major­ity leader Mag­gie Has­san. Lam­on­tagne unsuc­cess­fully ran for Gov­er­nor in 1996 and the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion for the U.S. Sen­ate in 2010. Has­san is doing her best to link Lam­on­tagne to the Tea Party, in con­trast to the “New Hamp­shire way”.

New Hamp­shire has three bal­lot measures:

CACR 26 would make the chief jus­tice of the state supreme court to be admin­is­tra­tive head of all the courts. This would appear to con­cen­trate a lot of the admin­is­tra­tive func­tions in one place. How­ever, the detailed word­ing of the change appears to make it an attempt to allow the state leg­is­la­ture more con­trol over the judi­ciary, because it allows the leg­is­la­ture to over­ride the deci­sions of the chief jus­tice. It’s tech­ni­cal and con­fus­ing; one most won­der if that was intentional.

CACR 13 would ban new taxes on per­sonal income. New Hamp­shire cur­rently has a “gam­bling win­nings tax” that assesses a 10 per­cent levy on win­nings of $600 or more and a 5 per­cent tax on div­i­dends and inter­est. CACR 13 would pre­vent any new taxes on, say, wages.

The Con­sti­tu­tional Con­ven­tion Ques­tion would cre­ate a con­ven­tion to revise, alter, or amend the state con­sti­tu­tion. New Hamp­shire is one of the states that require this ques­tion now and again, in this case, every ten years. New Hamp­shire res­i­dents are sel­dom anx­ious to change their Con­sti­tu­tion, and the mea­sure is not expected to pass.

New Jer­sey

There is a close and fas­ci­nat­ing race in a fairly mod­er­ate dis­trict in the mid­dle of the state. We’ve seen a num­ber of rematches above. This one is a twist on the idea.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 3 is a slightly Republican-​​leaning dis­trict (Cook PVI R+2) strad­dling the mid­dle of the state like a belt. Incum­bent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jon Run­yan (R-​​Mount Lau­rel Town­ship) is out-​​fundraising his Demo­c­ra­tic oppo­nent Shel­ley Adler by $1.4 mil­lion to about $630,000. Run­yan was an offen­sive tackle in the National Foot­ball League, where he played for four­teen sea­sons. He ran for Con­gress in 2010 and defeated then-​​incumbent Demo­c­rat John Adler, who died on April 4, 2011. He was the hus­band of Runyan’s cur­rent oppo­nent, Shel­ley. (I told you it was an inter­est­ing twist on the “rematch” idea.)  RCP gives Run­yan a “Weak” edge, down­graded from “Mod­er­ate” a few days ago, which may be a symp­tom of some momen­tum toward the Democrat.

There are two bal­lot mea­sures, one rais­ing money for higher edu­ca­tion, the other with a tor­tured his­tory that dis­plays a cur­rent Repub­li­can obses­sion with cut­ting ben­e­fits for pub­lic employ­ees. These par­tic­u­lar employ­ees fought back, set­ting up a New Jer­sey con­sti­tu­tional crisis.

Judi­cial Salary and Ben­e­fits Amend­ment: In 2011, New Jer­sey Gov­er­nor Chris Christie pushed pen­sion and ben­e­fit “reforms” that required state employ­ees — includ­ing mem­bers of the judi­ciary — to pay more for these ben­e­fits. The New Jer­sey Con­sti­tu­tion, how­ever, for­bids changes to judi­cial salaries dur­ing a judge’s tenure. Hud­son County Supe­rior Court Judge Paul DePas­cale then filed a law­suit, argu­ing that the new require­ments for increased con­tri­bu­tions to pen­sions con­sti­tuted a “diminu­tion of salary” and was there­fore uncon­sti­tu­tional. The New Jer­sey Supreme Court agreed. State leg­is­la­tors responded by putting a pen­sion reform pro­posal on the bal­lot to let the vot­ers decide. Appar­ently, if the law is not on your side, the proper course is to change the law.

The State Col­lege Bond Issue would autho­rize the state of New Jer­sey to bor­row $750 mil­lion for upgrades at the state’s col­leges. Most of the money would report­edly go to research uni­ver­si­ties, pub­lic col­leges, and 19 com­mu­nity colleges.

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