State Ballot Initiatives and the Hidden Midterm Election Narrative

Don’t get too optimistic.

As many Republicans awoke today hungover from a midterm election victory high, few paid any attention to the results of the numerous state ballot initiatives that were decided along with gubernatorial, Senate, and House elections yesterday.

Basically, some ballot initiatives ended positively and others not so well. In my estimate, there were more poor decisions than good ones, which contradicts the narrative of a Republican wave yesterday. There certainly was a wave, tsunami, shellacking (take your pick) on the national level and in state capitols, but when, for example, voters in Arkansas replace their Democrat senator with a Republican yet also vote for a state increase in the minimum wage, something seems amiss. Alaska and South Dakota—two other flip Republican victories in the Senate—also approved minimum wage increase measures.

Of course, it certainly is better for states, rather than the federal government, to be setting minimum wage laws. Ideally, though, one would expect voters fed up with Democrat Senators would also see through the sham-economics and rhetoric of minimum wage hikes.

In liberal Massachusetts, where Republican Charlie Baker defeated Democrat Martha Coakley, voters did reject a repeal of a 2011 law that permitted the expansion of casinos, but they voted to approve a measure that allows workers to accrue 40 hours per year–the highest in the nation. With Baker running on pledges to cut regulations, taxes, and foster a pro-business environment, how do Massachusetts voters then go on to allow their state government tamper in free markets even further with another regulation? Sure, paid sick leave is a good thing, but let private companies set their own policies. Competition among employers and employees serving their rational self-interests—not a government mandate crafted by bureaucrats, academia, and paper-pushers in Boston—will dictate the optimal paid sick leave policy.

In Washington state, voters approved measures to expand universal background checks on all gun purchases. Missouri voters bowed to teacher union pressure and failed to approve a measure that would have tied teacher pay to performance.

The marijuana legalization initiatives met mixed results. Oregon, Alaska, and D.C. approved recreational marijuana, while Florida voters rejected it. This is an issue that is increasingly splintering the GOP, so not much can be said about it in terms of contradicting the notion of a Republican wave.

This short analysis leaves me pondering: who are the voters are who vote for Republicans, but then go on to vote for un-conservative, un-Republican ballot initiatives? It seems to me there is a brewing contradiction in the ranks of so-called conservative and Republican voters that needs to be sorted out rather quickly—before 2016.