Ballot Watch: Mountain States

This is Bal­lot Watch. Today is the tenth in the series of arti­cles on the upcom­ing bal­lot ini­tia­tives and some key local elec­tions. In this arti­cle, we return to our geography-​​based col­lec­tions of states, taken roughly eight at a time. Along with the Moun­tain States of Col­orado, Idaho, Mon­tana, New Mex­ico, Utah and Wyoming, we’re includ­ing the north­ern Plains states of North and South Dakota.

For many years, this region has been reli­ably Repub­li­can. How­ever, demo­graphic changes have made some of the states a lot more inter­est­ing. New Mex­ico voted for the Repub­li­can from 1968 (Pres­i­dent Richard Nixon) to 1988 (Pres­i­dent George H. W. Bush). Since 1992 (Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton), how­ever, New Mex­ico has voted for the Demo­c­ra­tic Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, with a slight excur­sion to the red col­umn for Pres­i­dent George W. Bush’s reëlec­tion in 2004.

Col­orado was once solidly red in Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. Since 1952 (Pres­i­dent Dwight Eisen­hower), Col­orado has voted for the Demo­c­ra­tic can­di­date for Pres­i­dent only three times: 1964 (Pres­i­dent Lyn­don John­son), 1992 and 2008 (Pres­i­dent Barack Obama). How­ever, chang­ing Demo-​​graphics have made Col­orado a swing state. Also, pop­u­la­tion growth has made it a medium-​​large prize: nine elec­toral votes. Look to Jef­fer­son County (Monotreme’s home) as the bell­wether county. This county includes the west­ern Den­ver sub­urbs, and like the state and the coun­try, is almost evenly split between Yangs and Kohms. Most of Jef­fer­son County (in terms of pop­u­la­tion) is in Colorado’s 7^th Con­gres­sional Dis­trict (see below) with the less densely pop­u­lated moun­tain regions in the 2^nd, which is a Safe Demo­c­ra­tic seat.

Idaho has voted for the Repub­li­can since the 1968 elec­tion. Mon­tana also turned red in 1968 and only voted for the Demo­c­rat in 1992. North and South Dakota have both voted for the Repub­li­can since Wen­dell Willkie lost to Pres­i­dent Franklin Roo­sevelt in 1940, with the excep­tion of giv­ing their eight elec­toral votes to John­son in 1964. Utah and Wyoming have an almost solid streak of vot­ing Repub­li­can in Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions as well, start­ing in 1952, but like many other West­ern states both took a brief walk on the blue side in 1964.

I’ve sur­veyed House race rat­ings from as many sources as I can find, and those who want to check on indi­vid­ual races can use the fol­low­ing links: Larry Sabato’s Crys­tal Ball; Cook Polit­i­cal Report; New York Times; National Jour­nal; Roll Call; Real Clear Pol­i­tics (RCP).

Col­orado

Up to this week, there were two com­pet­i­tive House races in Col­orado, but hav­ing a Coors changes the pun­dits’ view­point on things.

Col­orado Con­gres­sional Dis­tricts, 2012 election.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 3, cur­rently held by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Scott Tip­ton (R-​​Cortez), includes the cities of Pueblo, Durango and Grand Junc­tion. The West­ern Slope (i.e., the state west of the Con­ti­nen­tal Divide, includ­ing Tipton’s home of Cortez) has long had a Sage­brush Rebellion-​​type Repub­li­can pop­u­la­tion, but the south­ern tier of coun­ties (includ­ing the ranches of the San Luis Val­ley town of Alam­osa and the mines, fac­to­ries and agri­cul­ture near the city of Pueblo) are heav­ily His­panic and are trend­ing Demo­c­ra­tic, which makes this dis­trict harder for Tip­ton to hold. Sabato, Cook, the New York Times and RCP all rate this as a “Repub­li­can lean­ing” seat but it could Tip­ton to Demo­c­rat Sal Pace, a state law­maker from Pueblo.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 6 is served by incum­bent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Coff­man (R-​​Aurora), who with a DW-​​NOMINATE of 0.548 is in the top half of House Repub­li­cans on the first-​​dimension con­ser­vatism scale. His Demo­c­ra­tic oppo­nent is State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Joe Mik­losi, who has with some suc­cess painted Coff­man as a “Rush Lim­baugh clone”. The Demo­c­ra­tic Con­gres­sional Cam­paign Com­mit­tee (DCCC) has tar­geted this dis­trict for a Demo­c­ra­tic takeover, espe­cially since the Col­orado Leg­is­la­ture ger­ry­man­dered the dis­trict into a strange back­ward “C” shape encom­pass­ing rel­a­tively lib­eral Den­ver sub­urbs to the north and east of the city. Sabato, Cook, RCP and Roll Call all rate this a tossup. The New York Times rates it a “Lean Repub­li­can”. Even in recent DCCC polling, Coff­man enjoys a 42 per­cent to 39 per­cent advan­tage. It will be inter­est­ing to see which way the unde­cid­eds break, now that the elec­tion sea­son is in full swing.

Until last week, Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 7, served by Ed Perl­mut­ter (D-​​Golden), was rated “safe Demo­c­ra­tic” by Sabato, but in last week’s House run­down, they moved it to “Likely Demo­c­ra­tic” which matches Cook, RCP and Roll Call. The rea­son? Huge amounts of money spent by chal­lenger Joe Coors, Jr., who gave $350,000 to his own cam­paign. Perl­mut­ter has a mod­er­ate DW-​​NOMINATE (–0.328, the 153^rd most lib­eral House mem­ber). Coors is no mod­er­ate at all, com­ing from the brew­ing fam­ily which has dom­i­nated Col­orado con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal life for gen­er­a­tions. His father Joe Coors, Sr., was a cofounder of the Her­itage Foun­da­tion and wrote Lt. Col. Oliver North a check for $65,000 to buy a light plane for the use of the Nicaraguan Con­tras. His brother Pete Coors made an unsuc­cess­ful run for the U.S. Sen­ate in 2004. From a 1998 Los Ange­les Times pro­file of the Coors family:

All five of Joe Coors’ sons, inspired by their mother, Holly, 67, are self-​​described, “born-​​again” Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ists. Hard core.

The old­est son, Joe Jr., 45, for instance, even lists “Bib­li­cal Prophecy” as a hobby, along with golf, on his com­pany resumé, and the whole fam­ily is await­ing Armaged­don, which Joe Jr. believes will occur around the year 2000.

Coors has touted inter­nal polling which shows him up by nine points, but the poll is from July, was released on Fox 31 news, and has no cross-​​tabs. Some­thing has Sabato spooked, though.

There are three mea­sures on the Col­orado bal­lot: Amend­ment 64, to legal­ize mar­i­juana, which we’ve cov­ered in a pre­vi­ous Bal­lot Watch; Amend­ment 65, which tweaks cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions and more impor­tantly directs Col­orado leg­is­la­tors to intro­duce bills oppos­ing the Supreme Court rul­ing in Cit­i­zens United; and a purely admin­is­tra­tive measure.

Idaho

In 2011, the Idaho Leg­is­la­ture passed a series of edu­ca­tion reforms. Oppo­nents, includ­ing the teach­ers’ unions, claim the reforms will weaken edu­ca­tion. There are three ref­er­enda on the 2012 bal­lot which seek to over­turn the State Legislature’s action: Propo­si­tions 1, 2 and 3. The bill which edu­ca­tors seek to over­turn with Propo­si­tion 3 is inter­est­ing: it makes two online classes a require­ment for grad­u­a­tion from an Idaho high school, and takes money away from liv­ing teach­ers to fur­nish Idaho stu­dents with lap­tops and/​or tablets.

House Joint Res­o­lu­tion 2, the Idaho Hunt­ing and Fish­ing Amend­ment, enshrines in the Idaho State Con­sti­tu­tion the right to hunt, fish and trap.

The pro­posed amend­ment states:

The rights to hunt, fish and trap, includ­ing by the use of tra­di­tional meth­ods are a val­ued part of the her­itage of the state of Idaho and shall for­ever be pre­served for the peo­ple and man­aged through the laws, rules and procla­ma­tions that pre­serve the future of hunt­ing, fish­ing and trap­ping. Pub­lic hunt­ing, fish­ing and trap­ping of wildlife shall be a pre­ferred means of man­ag­ing wildlife. The rights set forth herein do not cre­ate a right to tres­pass on pri­vate prop­erty, shall not affect rights to divert, appro­pri­ate and use water, or estab­lish any min­i­mum amount of water in any water body, shall not lead to a diminu­tion of other pri­vate prop­erty rights, and shall not pre­vent the sus­pen­sion or revo­ca­tion, pur­suant to statute enacted by the Leg­is­la­ture, of an individual’s hunt­ing, fish or trap­ping license.

If this appears sim­i­lar to Wyoming’s leg­is­la­tion (see below), per­haps it’s the Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Coun­cil (ALEC) again? Any time there are almost-​​identical bills passed by Republican-​​dominated leg­is­la­tors that pur­port to pre­serve rights that no one is try­ing to take away, ALEC is usu­ally a prime suspect.

The fifth bal­lot mea­sure, another Con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment (the “Idaho State Prison Con­trol Amend­ment”, SJR 102), would give the state Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions con­trol over parole and pro­ba­tion of felony prisoners.

Mon­tana

Mon­tana is another state, like Col­orado, that is in the midst of a demo­graphic tran­si­tion from a strong ruby red to a more pur­ple shade.

The race for Mon­tana Gov­er­nor is a tossup. In polling released this week, Demo­c­ra­tic Attor­ney Gen­eral Steve Bul­lock polled at 44 per­cent and for­mer Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Hill (R) at 43 per­cent. Two per­cent say they will vote for the Lib­er­tar­ian can­di­date, and 11 per­cent are unde­cided. One trou­bling sta­tis­tic for Hill: while Bul­lock has a +19 favorable/​unfavorable dif­fer­en­tial, Hill is at only +1 per­cent, with about a third polled view­ing him favor­ably, a third unfa­vor­ably, and a third with neu­tral feel­ings. On Capi­tol Hill, Hill was a mod­er­ate Repub­li­can, with a DW-​​NOMINATE of 0.495, close to the party’s aver­age at the time he served (1997–2001).

Mon­tana has only one Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the House. Montana’s At-​​Large House Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Denny Rehberg, is a rel­a­tively mod­er­ate Repub­li­can, scor­ing 0.357, 55^th amongst House Repub­li­cans (249^th over­all in the House) on the DW-​​NOMINATE first-​​dimension scale. He’s retir­ing to run for the Sen­ate against incum­bent Sen­a­tor Jon Tester, so the seat is open. Michael rated the Sen­ate seat a tossup in his lat­est Sen­ate Watch.

Repub­li­can Steve Daines and Demo­c­rat Kim Gillan are vying for Rehberg’s seat. Daines is a busi­ness­man from Boze­man who failed in his ear­lier run for Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor, while Gillan is a work­force train­ing coör­di­na­tor and State Sen­a­tor from Billings. Recent polling released Sat­ur­day (by Mason-​​Dixon for Lee News­pa­pers) shows 46 per­cent of vot­ers choos­ing Daines, 38 per­cent choos­ing Gillan, two per­cent vot­ing for the Lib­er­tar­ian Party can­di­date, and a rel­a­tively large 14 per­cent unde­cided. Name recog­ni­tion is a prob­lem: 49 per­cent don’t rec­og­nize Gillan’s name, and 28 per­cent don’t know who Daines is.

The Helena Independent-​​Record quotes voter Lor­raine Johnson:

It’s some­thing I haven’t really heard a whole lot about; I’m still kind of ambiva­lent about that one. I’d kind of like to hear what they’re stand­ing for.

So would we all, Lorraine.

There are five ref­er­enda on the Mon­tana bal­lot this year. LR-​​120 is the Mon­tana Parental Noti­fi­ca­tion Mea­sure which requires parental noti­fi­ca­tion of a minor’s abor­tion, with the option for a judi­cial waiver. LR-​​121 requires proof of cit­i­zen­ship before receiv­ing state ser­vices. LR-​​122 and LR-​​124 have been cov­ered pre­vi­ously in our Bal­lot Watches on Oba­macare and mar­i­juana, respec­tively.

The Mon­tana Cor­po­rate Con­tri­bu­tions Ini­tia­tive 166 is more com­pli­cated. You might remem­ber that a Mon­tana law which attempted to over­rule the Supreme Court deci­sion in Cit­i­zens United was inval­i­dated by the United States Supreme Court on June 25. This law is more advi­sory in nature; like the Col­orado law, it pro­motes fur­ther leg­isla­tive study and com­pels Montana’s Con­gres­sional rep­re­sen­ta­tives to con­sider a leg­isla­tive over­ride of Cit­i­zens United.

New Mex­ico

In Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 1, incum­bent Demo­c­rat Mar­tin Hein­rich is step­ping down to run for Sen­ate. (Michael rates this race Likely Demo­c­rat.) In a rare all-​​female race, Demo­c­ra­tic Bernalillo County Com­mis­sioner Michelle Lujan Grisham is up against Repub­li­can for­mer State Rep. and for­mer Guber­na­to­r­ial can­di­date Jan­ice Arnold-​​Jones and Green Party can­di­date Jeanne Pahls. While The New York Times and Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics rate this “Leans Demo­c­ra­tic”, Sabato has just moved it to “Safe Demo­c­ra­tic”. An Albu­querque Jour­nal poll from early Sep­tem­ber has Grisham up by 12 points, 46 per­cent to 34 per­cent. Sabato must be read­ing that lead as insur­mount­able, given the fun­da­men­tals of the district.

There are three bonds and five Con­sti­tu­tional Amend­ments on the bal­lot. All appear to be non-​​controversial.

North Dakota

In the At-​​Large Con­gres­sional seat, incum­bent Repub­li­can Rick Berg is vacat­ing the seat to run for Sen­ate. Repub­li­can Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sioner Kevin Cramer faces for­mer State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Pam Gulle­son in the race, which has been over­shad­owed by the Sen­ate con­test (which Michael rates “Leans Repub­li­can” but notes the paucity of polling data).

Cook and Roll Call have this one at “Likely Repub­li­can”. Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics rates it “Leans Repub­li­can”. No other sites list it as com­pet­i­tive. A June Mason-​​Dixon poll had Cramer up by 14, 49–35, but per­haps with the com­pet­i­tive Sen­ate race some experts feel this seat is in play if a wave comes.

North Dakota has four mea­sures on the Novem­ber ballot.

Con­sti­tu­tional Mea­sure 1 is an amend­ment that would remove the poll tax (!) and ref­er­ences to “pau­pers” and “idiots”. It seems non-​​controversial.

Con­sti­tu­tional Mea­sure 2 is an amend­ment that requires the Gov­er­nor and other mem­bers of the State Exec­u­tive branch to take an oath of office.

Con­sti­tu­tional Mea­sure 3 is an amend­ment which would add a new Sec­tion 29 to Arti­cle XI:

The right of farm­ers and ranch­ers to engage in mod­ern farm­ing and ranch­ing prac­tices shall be for­ever guar­an­teed in this state. No law shall be enacted which abridges the right of farm­ers and ranch­ers to employ agri­cul­tural tech­nol­ogy, mod­ern live­stock pro­duc­tion and ranch­ing practices.

This is meant to ward off ani­mal rights activists, and is spon­sored by the North Dakota Farm Bureau.

Statu­tory Mea­sure 4 would

pro­hibit smok­ing, includ­ing the use of elec­tronic smok­ing devices, in pub­lic places and most places of employ­ment in the state, includ­ing cer­tain out­door areas. It would pro­vide noti­fi­ca­tion and enforce­ment respon­si­bil­i­ties, along with penal­ties for violations.

Statu­tory Mea­sure 5 would

make it a class C felony for an indi­vid­ual to mali­ciously and inten­tion­ally harm a liv­ing dog, cat or horse and pro­vide a court with cer­tain sen­tenc­ing options. The mea­sure would not apply to pro­duc­tion agri­cul­ture, or to law­ful activ­i­ties of hunters and trap­pers, licensed vet­eri­nar­i­ans, sci­en­tific researchers, or to indi­vid­u­als engaged in law­ful defense of life or property.

South Dakota

Con­sti­tu­tional Amend­ments M, N, O and P are not from The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, but rather are house­keep­ing amend­ments to the State con­sti­tu­tion. Referred Law 14 takes a por­tion of taxes for busi­ness incentives.

Ini­ti­ated Mea­sure 15 raises the state sales tax from four to five per­cent. An orga­ni­za­tion called Mov­ing South Dakota For­ward is pro­mot­ing the ini­tia­tive, which is sup­ported by state edu­ca­tional asso­ci­a­tions. The Farm Bureau and the Retail­ers Asso­ci­a­tion oppose the initiative.

Referred Law 16 is “an edu­ca­tion reform act to estab­lish a teacher schol­ar­ship pro­gram; cre­ate a pro­gram for math and sci­ence teacher bonuses; cre­ate a pro­gram for teacher merit bonuses; man­date a uni­form teacher and prin­ci­pal eval­u­a­tion sys­tem; and elim­i­nate state require­ments for teacher tenure”. It asks vot­ers to approve a law already passed by the Leg­is­la­ture and signed by the Gov­er­nor. Oppo­si­tion has come from the South Dakota Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion, which placed this attempt at a bal­lot veto of the leg­is­la­tion. I have not been able to find polling on these.

Utah

For many decades, Utah has had a com­fort­able time of set­ting Con­gres­sional dis­trict bound­aries, with only three House seats. Between the 2000 and 2010 cen­suses, though, Utah was the most pop­u­lous three-​​seater, so it was widely expected to gain a fourth seat. (Recall the late-​​aughts ini­tia­tive to give Utah one seat and the Dis­trict of Colum­bia one seat each in order to get D.C. res­i­dents to ditch their polem­i­cal “Tax­a­tion with­out Rep­re­sen­ta­tion” license plates.)

In April, I told you about Saratoga Springs Mayor Mia Love, a ris­ing Utah Repub­li­can star. She was a big hit at the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion. Love (born Lud­mya Bour­deau) is the Brooklyn-​​born daugh­ter of Hait­ian immi­grants who mar­ried LDS mis­sion­ary Jason Love, became a Mor­mon con­vert and moved to Utah. There are no ques­tions about her Amer­i­can cit­i­zen­ship. She is the mother of three.

At the state con­ven­tion, Love was the dynamic speaker who wowed the del­e­gates and wiped the floor with com­pet­ing Tea Party-​​supported wannabes.

In the ger­ry­man­der after the 2010 Cen­sus, the Republican-​​dominated Utah Leg­is­la­ture (which reaches near-​​Soviet lev­els of group­think) did their best to carve up incum­bent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jim Matheson’s (D-​​Salt Lake City) seat. The Math­e­son fam­ily has long been a dom­i­nant force in state Demo­c­ra­tic pol­i­tics; the Congressman’s father Scott was Gov­er­nor of Utah from 1977 to 1985, and his brother Scott, Jr., is an Obama-​​appointed judge on the Tenth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals.

Sabato, Cook, and the New York Times all rate this as a tossup. Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics rates it as “Leans Demo­c­ra­tic”. A June Deseret News/​KSL poll (both the news­pa­per and the TV sta­tion are owned by the LDS Church) showed Math­e­son with a com­mand­ing 53–38 lead. This was, of course, before The Speech, and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Math­e­son is in a dis­trict with a Cook Par­ti­san Vot­ing Index of R+20, the red­dest of any Democrat-​​held seat.

Wyoming

Mea­sure 1 (Wyoming Health Care Amend­ment) was already cov­ered by DC in his Bal­lot Watch: Oba­macare.

Mea­sure 2 pre­serves the right of state res­i­dents to hunt, fish, and trap.

Arti­cle 1. Sec­tion 38. Right to hunt, fish and trap. The oppor­tu­nity to har­vest wild bird, fish and game is a her­itage that shall for­ever be pre­served to the indi­vid­ual cit­i­zens of the state and does not cre­ate a right to tres­pass on pri­vate prop­erty, dimin­ish other pri­vate rights or dimin­ish the duty of the state to man­age wild bird, fish and game in such a man­ner that ensures ade­quate pop­u­la­tions and sus­tained use.

Like so many bal­lot mea­sures (for exam­ple, block­ing impo­si­tion of Sharia Law), this “solves” a non-​​existent problem.

Mea­sure 3 relates to court admin­is­tra­tion and appears uncontroversial.

Related arti­cles

• Three races make Col­orado a con­gres­sional battleground
• Colorado’s con­gres­sional can­di­dates trades barbs dur­ing debate
• Mik­losi, Coors trend­ing up in races for Congress