Previewing the Ballot Measures

Walter Olson

Voters will go to the polls soon in states and municipalities to decide ballot issues of significance for individual liberty, limited government, and sound public administration. Some highlights (via Ballotpedia and Bolts): 

Front and center for tax-watchers is the proposed California Proposition 40 wealth tax, criticized here in numerous pieces, including this policy analysis. Unusually steep by international standards at 5 percent, the measure would also defy widespread notions of legal regularity by reaching back retroactively to tax assets as of January 1, 2026, of persons who’d already moved out of state before the law’s enactment. Bad stuff.

Colorado’s Amendment 87 would replace the state’s flat 4.4 percent income tax with a graduated tax; it faces a counter-proposition that would freeze the existing flat rate. Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, and Washington will all consider measures to freeze, roll back, or discourage increases in income tax rates. Adam Michel lately discussed the success of state flat taxes. 

Proposed constitutional changes in Arizona and Wisconsin are aimed at racial (and other) preferences. Arkansas would declare the right to keep and bear arms “a natural, fundamental, and individual right that shall not be infringed.” Colorado would prohibit bans on natural gas. Vermont would inscribe collective bargaining into its list of constitutional rights (see my 2022 comments on a similar Illinois measure). Virginia would repeal its ban on same-sex marriage. Wisconsin would ban orders restricting worship gatherings during epidemics. Denver and Washington, DC, will consider bans on foie gras. 

Criminal justice has seen a turnaround in ballot climate: while a few years ago a majority of measures sought to reduce penalties or reduce incarceration, this year all six proposals seek to either increase penalties (two Colorado measures) or make bail available in fewer situations (Alabama, Indiana, Louisiana, Tennessee). 

Voter ID is on the ballot in seven states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma), and bans on noncitizen voting are in effect in six (Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia). In none of those states are noncitizens currently allowed to vote; five of the measures would enshrine the existing ban in the state constitution. On ID, my advice is to look closely at drafting, which can make big differences in practical feasibility. 

Permitting reform is on the ballot in California with Prop 45, which would roll back the notorious CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) for certain projects. 

In my own state of Maryland, I’ve been critical of statewide Question 1, prescribing binding arbitration for state employees, and Question 3, which would open wide the doors to extreme partisan gerrymandering at the legislature’s whim. Missouri’s Prop A, in contrast, would block a gerrymander.