This is Bal­lot Watch. Today is the 14th in the series of arti­cles on the upcom­ing bal­lot ini­tia­tives and some key local elec­tions. Some of these cov­ered top­ics in com­mon with mul­ti­ple states, but the remain­der look at a state level. With the sec­ond of the two-​​part arti­cle on the South which runs tomor­row, our series will close.

The mid-​​Atlantic states are a mixed bag, includ­ing the Democratic-​​leaning Delaware, Dis­trict of Colum­bia, and Mary­land, the very con­ser­v­a­tive West Vir­ginia, and a state on the par­ti­san knife-​​edge, the swing state of Vir­ginia. Though Delaware is rep­re­sented by long-​​term Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Cas­tle, the longest-​​serving rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the state’s his­tory, it will almost cer­tainly give its three elec­toral votes to Barack Obama. The Dis­trict of Colum­bia has a non-​​voting rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Con­gress. None of these races are likely to pro­duce surprises.

Mary­land

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 6 includes the west­ern reaches of the state. Incum­bent Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-​​Frederick) has rep­re­sented this Cook D+2 dis­trict since 1993. He is being chal­lenged by Demo­c­rat and pro­gres­sive busi­ness­man John K. Delaney. A poll in early August showed the two vir­tu­ally tied. Delany has raised nearly four times as much cam­paign money as Bartlett, just under $3 mil­lion to $850,000. This race could def­i­nitely fur­nish a pickup in the Democ­rats’ attempt to wrest back con­trol of the House. Bartlett is 86 years old; he may actu­ally wel­come retirement.

There are sev­eral bal­lot mea­sures in Mary­land this year:

Ques­tions 1 and 2 would require judges of the Orphans’ Court for Prince George’s County and Bal­ti­more County, respec­tively, to have been admit­ted to prac­tice law in Mary­land and be in good stand­ing with the Mary­land Bar. One might have thought judges would have been so required all along.

Ques­tion 3 spec­i­fies con­di­tions under which elected offi­cials con­victed of a felony or cer­tain mis­de­meanors would be removed from office. From the text of the bal­lot ques­tion: “Under exist­ing law, an elected offi­cial who is con­victed or pleads no con­test is sus­pended and is removed only when the con­vic­tion becomes final. Under the amended law, an elected offi­cial is sus­pended when found guilty and is removed when the con­vic­tion becomes final or when the elected offi­cial pleads guilty or no con­test.” This begs a larger ques­tion: Should being con­victed of a felony make one inel­i­gi­ble for elected office? If so, why?

Ques­tion 4 would allow immi­grants to pay in-​​state or in-​​county tuition at Mary­land col­leges. In order to qual­ify, stu­dents would be required to have attended a Mary­land high school for three years, as well as prove that their par­ents or they them­selves filed taxes. Ini­tially, stu­dents that qual­ify would have to attend a com­mu­nity col­lege. After two years, the stu­dents can trans­fer to a four year uni­ver­sity. Accord­ing to reports, the leg­is­la­tion is esti­mated to cost $3.5 mil­lion by 2016. This Ques­tion was actu­ally put on the bal­lot in an effort to defeat it; see a longer expla­na­tion of the process in the descrip­tion of Ques­tion 5, below. How do you feel about allow­ing undoc­u­mented immi­grants to attend col­lege, and to do so at in-​​state rates?

Ques­tion 5 would approve Maryland’s con­gres­sional redis­trict­ing plan, which was passed by the state leg­is­la­ture in Octo­ber 2011. The ref­er­en­dum allows vot­ers to decide whether Maryland’s con­gres­sional redis­trict­ing plan will be upheld. That is, the leg­is­la­ture approved the plan, but it was chal­lenged, by a group called Mary­land Peti­tions. A vote for the Ques­tion is a vote for the plan; but the point of putting the Ques­tion on the bal­lot is to encour­age cit­i­zens to defeat the plan. Accord­ing to Mary­land State Del­e­gate Justin Ready, who is spear­head­ing the ref­er­en­dum, the state has been too ger­ry­man­dered: “The map, which passed in Octo­ber, takes Car­roll County out of its tra­di­tional pair­ing with West­ern Mary­land and splits us into two con­gres­sional dis­tricts. So, Taney­town is in the same dis­trict as Ocean City and West­min­ster is con­nected to Sil­ver Spring in a dis­trict that is shaped like the coun­try of Thailand.”

Ques­tion 6, known as the Same-​​Sex Mar­riage Ref­er­en­dum, which Monotreme cov­ered in the Bal­lot Watch on Same-​​Sex Mar­riage would approve a law that allows same-​​sex cou­ples to obtain a civil mar­riage license. The mea­sure is in response to the enact­ment of the Civil Mar­riage Pro­tec­tion Act on March 1, 2012, which will allow same-​​sex cou­ples to obtain a civil mar­riage license in the state begin­ning Jan­u­ary 1, 2013, and pro­tect clergy from hav­ing to per­form any par­tic­u­lar mar­riage cer­e­mony in vio­la­tion of their reli­gious beliefs. The ref­er­en­dum allows vot­ers to decide whether the law will be upheld. As with Ques­tion 5, it was brought to the bal­lot in an effort to defeat it.

Ques­tion 7, the Gam­ing Expan­sion Ques­tion, allows a new casino to be built in Prince George’s County, and would expand the type of games allowed at exist­ing casi­nos. The pur­pose of such changes is usu­ally to avoid or limit the need for tax increases.

Vir­ginia

This swing state could decide the Pres­i­den­tial race. There is also a com­pet­i­tive Con­gres­sional race with a vul­ner­a­ble Repub­li­can incum­bent who was swept into office as part of the 2010 wave.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 2 con­sists of a penin­sula hang­ing south­ward from Mary­land and a bit of the south­east cor­ner of the main­land por­tion of the state. It has a Cook Par­ti­san Vot­ing Index of R+5. It is rep­re­sented in Con­gress by fresh­man Rep­re­sen­ta­tive (and for­mer car dealer) Scott Rigell (R-​​Virginia Beach). Dur­ing the 2010 pri­maries, he came under attack from his pri­mary oppo­nents for hav­ing sold 138 cars under the Cash for Clunk­ers pro­gram, which Rigell sub­se­quently crit­i­cized as “reck­less bailouts and an out-​​of-​​control fed­eral debt.” was also attacked for mak­ing cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions to Barack Obama dur­ing the 2008 Demo­c­ra­tic pri­maries. He is opposed this year by Demo­c­rat Paul Odell Hirsch­biel, Jr., the owner and Pres­i­dent of Eden Cap­i­tal, a Vir­ginia Beach-​​based con­sult­ing and invest­ing firm. Though this is a Republican-​​leaning dis­trict, the Demo­c­rat may have a good chance. Fundrais­ing for the two has been com­pet­i­tive — $1.6 mil­lion for RIgell, vs. $1.1 mil­lion for Hirschbiel.

There are two bal­lot mea­sures this year in Virginia:

Ques­tion 1 deals with notions of prop­erty rights and the con­cept of emi­nent domain. The bal­lot mea­sure would limit instances when pri­vate prop­erty could be appro­pri­ated by the gov­ern­ment, pro­hibit­ing seizures for pri­vate enter­prise, job cre­ation, tax rev­enue gen­er­a­tion or eco­nomic devel­op­ment. This would restrict emi­nent domain to being invoked only to take pri­vate land for pub­lic use. Specif­i­cally, it would update a 2007 law which allows pri­vate prop­erty to be taken only when the pub­lic inter­est dom­i­nates the pri­vate gain. Vir­ginia Attor­ney Gen­eral Ken Cuc­cinelli framed his sup­port of the mea­sure by say­ing local gov­ern­ments “despise the notion of indi­vid­ual rights that may ever impede any­thing they want to do.” The Vir­ginia Munic­i­pal League and the Vir­ginia Asso­ci­a­tion of Coun­ties have both gone on record opposint the mea­sure. Accord­ing to a state­ment from the Vir­ginia Munic­i­pal League, “The amend­ment is unnec­es­sary and will harm Virginia’s cit­i­zens by severely lim­it­ing the abil­ity of local gov­ern­ments and the state to carry out projects that help improve life for the commonwealth’s pop­u­la­tion.” Spot­syl­va­nia County released a state­ment oppos­ing the mea­sure, want­ing to pre­serve emi­nent domain for schools, parks and roads, and to ensure the amounts that local­i­ties pay pri­vate landown­ers for taken prop­erty are “rea­son­able and do not include spec­u­la­tive mea­sures of dam­ages.” This mea­sure appears to be part of a larger nation­wide con­ser­v­a­tive con­cern with prop­erty rights.

Ques­tion 2 appears to be a fairly straight­for­ward bit of house­keep­ing, unless there are local issues that are not obvi­ous from a dis­tance. It allows the leg­is­la­ture to delay the start of its veto ses­sion by up to one week. The stated inten­tion of the mea­sure is to pre­vent the veto ses­sion from start­ing on a hol­i­day. The offi­cial bal­lot text reads as fol­lows: “Shall Sec­tion 6 of Arti­cle IV (Leg­is­la­ture) of the Con­sti­tu­tion of Vir­ginia con­cern­ing leg­isla­tive ses­sions be amended to allow the Gen­eral Assem­bly to delay by no more than one week the fixed start­ing date for the recon­vened or “veto” ses­sion when the Gen­eral Assem­bly meets after a ses­sion to con­sider the bills returned to it by the Gov­er­nor with vetoes or amendments?”

West Vir­ginia

There is an inter­est­ing bal­lot mea­sure this year, part of America’s recur­ring dis­cus­sion over whether elected rep­re­sen­ta­tives should have enforced term lim­its, or whether the vot­ers should make the deci­sion as to each representative’s term at the bal­lot box. This one, how­ever, has the inter­est­ing twist that it would remove an exist­ing limit, rather than impose one. The West Vir­ginia County Sher­iff Term Limit Amend­ment pro­poses end­ing term lim­its for county sher­iffs. Cur­rently, sher­iffs are lim­ited to two con­sec­u­tive terms.

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