scholarly journals Essays on the effects of the voter initiative in U.S. states

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory M. Randolph
Keyword(s):  
Voter Initiative

Paws to the Polls: The Making of a Campus Voter Initiative

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Baby Boomers ◽  
Environmental Injustice ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
The World ◽  
Voting Age ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
Voter Initiative

The ravages of social and environmental injustice, pandemics, and racial strife (to name but a few global issues) would lead many of the earth’s inhabitants to agree that change needs to happen. The world will soon pass from the hands of the baby boomers to the millennials and Gen Z, and from the hands of the educators to those we are educating. The protests against the Vietnam War brought us a lowered voting age, from 21 to 18. With help from the slogan “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote,” the 26th Amendment was passed in 1971.

scholarly journals Washington State's Public Records Act: A Battle in the 2018 Legislature and Beyond

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
Peggy Watt
Keyword(s):  
Washington State ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Crucial Point ◽  
Public Records ◽  
Citizen Activism ◽  
Court Action ◽  
Voter Initiative

This case study documents the battle over the Washington State Public Records Act, which raged from 2017 through the end of 2019, reaching a crucial point through an extraordinary combination of citizen activism, journalistic pressure, and court action. The act, adopted in 1972 by a voter initiative, covers all “agencies,” but state legislators rejected the classification and refused to honor records requests. Journalists successfully challenged the Legislature in court, and in response lawmakers attempted to update the act to allow for secrecy, but failed. Lessons learned from the scuffle may be applied by legislators and transparency advocates in Washington state and throughout the country.

Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative Reconsidered: Addressing Endogeneity

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 327-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa J. Marschall ◽  
Anirudh V.S. Ruhil
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Full Information Maximum Likelihood ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
American States ◽  
Initiative Process ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Voter Initiative ◽  
Biased Estimates ◽  
Positive Effect

Several recent studies have investigated the relationship between direct democracy and public policy outcomes, with mixed findings. These inconsistencies may stem, in part, from researchers' failure to recognize that direct democracy institutions are distributed nonrandomly across the American states. That is, certain factors may lead a state to adopt the initiative process and influence other policy choices. We revisit the question of how the initiative influences state fiscal policy using panel data from 1960–2000 and a full-information maximum likelihood estimator that explicitly accounts for the endogeneity of the initiative. Our findings suggest that failure to endogenize the initiative in empirical analyses leads to substantially biased estimates of its effects. In particular, we find that once factors that predict whether a state has adopted the initiative are controlled, the initiative has a positive effect on state revenue generation and spending.

Problems with a Methodology Used to Evaluate the Voter Initiative

2001 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1250-1256 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Matsusaka
Keyword(s):  
Voter Initiative

Diversity by the Numbers

2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Coyle McCabe ◽  
Christopher Stream
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Demographic Changes ◽  
State And Local Government ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Voter Initiative

The tools used to diversify workforces in state and local governments have come under attack and, in at least one state, have been rescinded by voter initiative. The current backlash against these policies begs the question of whether diversification has occurred, and, if so, how the workforce has changed. In this study, we examine demographic changes in the composition of state and local bureaucracies from 1980 to 1995, looking specifically at the share of representation of both women and men as well as of African Americans and whites. We find significant gains have been made by a combination of white and, especially, black women. Overall, as we enter the next decade, we find a state and local government workforce that is moving towards a more equal gender split.

scholarly journals Interpretation of California's Marijuana Regulations after Proposition 64 and Pharmacy Practice Roles in Medical Marijuana Dispensing against Federal Enforcement Risks

2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-21
Author(s):  
Ettie Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
Pharmacy Practice ◽  
Medical Marijuana ◽  
Medical Cannabis ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Compassionate Use ◽  
Regulatory Oversight ◽  
Regulatory Scheme ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Recreational Marijuana ◽  
Voter Initiative

California was the first state in the union to pass medical marijuana legislation with Proposition 215, the voter enacted California Compassionate Use Act (CCUA, 1996), though regulatory oversight for the medical marijuana industry was negligible over the next 20 years. In 2015, California legislators passed the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act (MMRSA), providing a new and comprehensive regulatory framework for medical marijuana, subsequently renaming it the Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MCRSA), with a planned implementation of January 1, 2018. In 2016, California's marijuana landscape dramatically changed with the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), also known as Proposition 64 (“Prop 64”), a voter initiative successful in legalizing recreational marijuana, where many prior similar initiatives had failed. In 2017, California lawmakers merged the two Acts (MCRSA and AUMA) into the Medical and Adult Use of Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act, (MAUCRSA), known as Senate Bill 94 (SB 94), which passed overwhelmingly and created a single comprehensive marijuana regulatory scheme for California by integrating the 2015 recreational marijuana law with the state's longstanding medical marijuana program, also effective in January 2018. Given the current national marijuana landscape and political climate, California's novel unified model for regulating and taxing marijuana will likely influence how other states proceed to regulate and tax the emerging legal marijuana industry, which has an estimated value of $7 billion. Part One of this article provides an overview of the soon to be effective “harmonized” regulatory scheme for California's medicinal and recreational marijuana industries, touching on its potential to influence other states. Part Two surveys the changed national marijuana landscape within which three states have already implemented a role for pharmacists in medical marijuana dispensing, despite that under the federal Controlled Substances Act, as a Schedule I substance, marijuana remains illegal for any purpose. The recent developments have not surprisingly triggered questions about a pharmacist's liability vis a vis marijuana dispensing and federal enforcement risks. Part Two also attempts to answer those questions through an informative discussion of the national marijuana landscape, the current political climate, and their respective influences on federal marijuana policy and enforcement.

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