2005 Election Recap

California: A basically liberal state rejected conservative ballot propositions. The good news is that in defeating these propositions, the public employee unions drove themselves to the brink of bankruptcy and will not have such plentiful coffers next year. The teachers' union mortgaged its headquarters and imposed a $60 per month dues surcharge on all members for the next several years to pay this debt.

New Jersey: Jon Corzine will invert the usual political order in the Mafia State by becoming a governor who buys off all the political bosses, union bosses, and party hacks, rather than selling out to them.

Ohio: Buckeyes, I am proud of you. (Now please learn to keep to the right on the road and stop blocking the left lane.) You saw through the Moveon.org and George Soros spin machine & delivered a spanking to a quartet of ballot initiatives that would have destroyed the Ohio GOP. Not one of those issues passed in a single county--not Cuyahoga, not Lucas, not Franklin, not Mahoning, not even Athens, the lone county to reject the marriage amendment last year. Issue 2 would have allowed unrestricted absentee voting by mail for 5 weeks before Election Day and would have generated massive fraud. Issue 3 would have severely limited campaign contributions with a labor union loophole the size of Lake Erie. Issues 4 and 5 would have established "independent" bipartisan commissions to draw legislative & congressional districts and run elections, which are currently run by the elected Secretary of State and bipartisan local election boards.

Texas: Proposition 2, protecting the traditional definition of marriage passed easily, receiving over 3/4 of the vote. Travis County--home of Ronnie Earle--was the only county to not support keeping marriage between a man and a woman.

Virginia: I will write in depth separately on the Old Dominion. However, one must ask, "What's happened to ole Virginny?" Even Loudon County, Prince William County, and the cities of Lynchburg & Virginia Beach voted for Tim Kaine!

Washington State: Libs in Seattle--probably more than a few posthumously given the irregularities in voting we saw in last year's election--showed up to vote, driven by a hotly contested King County Executive race. Bucking recent trends, voters rejected limits on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases and rejected an initiative to repeal a 9.5 cent per gallon gas tax hike to fund road projects. I-901, a statewide Clean Indoor Air Act banning smoking in all indoor public places & workplaces and within 25 feet of any door or air intake for such places, passed. Had I had a vote, my votes would have been with the winners on all of these issues except I-330, the noneconomic damages measure. Complete WA election results are here.