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In yet another blow to the United States' decades-long war on drugs, the nation's capital has legalized recreational marijuana, NPR and USA Today reported Tuesday night.
Washington, D.C., voters on Tuesday approved Initiative 71, which legalizes adult marijuana use, possession of up to two ounces and home cultivation of up to six marijuana plants for personal use. With 29 percent of votes in, 68 percent of District residents supported the measure, and 31 percent were opposed.
Read more here.
-- Matt Ferner
Environmental groups are cheering Democrat Gwen Graham's win over incumbent Rep. Steve Southerland (R) in Florida's 2nd District.
The League of Conservation Voters had included Southerland on its'Dirty Dozen' list, calling his environmental record 'about as bad as it gets.'
The Ocean Champions Political Action Committee had also named Southerland 'Ocean Enemy #1,' citing his 'terrible record on ocean issues.' And the group Food Policy Action had also made Southerland 'their #1 target in this year's race,' in opposition to his positions on food and small farming.
-- Kate Sheppard
The power is apparently out in Alaska's remote Prudhoe Bay precinct. According to Paul Vercammen, senior producer at CNN, voters are using flashlights to mark their ballots.
HuffPost's Dave Jamieson reports:
Massachusetts on Tuesday became the third state in the nation to guarantee paid sick days for workers, with voters decisively approving a sick-leave ballot initiative, 60 percent to 40 percent.
Under the measure known as Question 4, employers will have to provide their workers with one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours they work. ... Workers can use the time when they're ill, injured or need to tend to a medical condition, or when a spouse, child or parent needs to be cared for.
Read more here.
Massachusetts voters elected Democrat Maura Healey attorney general on Tuesday. She is the first openly gay attorney general in the country.
Healey won a competitive primary against former state Sen. Warren Tolman (D) earlier this year, and she easily defeated Republican John Miller on Tuesday.
EMILY's List, a progressive PAC that supports pro-choice Democratic women, helped Healey win her primary earlier this year and celebrated her historic win Tuesday night.
'Tonight, voters in Massachusetts decisively chose to elect progressive champion Maura Healey Attorney General,' said the group's president, Stephanie Schriock. 'Maura has spent years fighting to expand rights and freedoms for women and families in Massachusetts. And now with the help of the EMILY's List community - three million members strong - she can take that leadership to the next level. There is huge momentum for women's leadership in New England, and that's a trend that is here to stay.'
'Maura Healey is one of the staunchest advocates for equality we have in this country, and we join her in celebrating her historic victory tonight,' said Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin. 'As the nation's first openly gay attorney general, she is an inspirational trailblazer and will fight to guarantee civil rights and legal equality for all people of Massachusetts.'
-- Laura Bassett
Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) on Tuesday defeated incumbent Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) in one of the country's most competitive Senate contests, the Associated Press reports.
Udall, first elected to the Senate in 2008, had been considered one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents, dragged down by his attacks on Gardner and by President Barack Obama's unpopularity in the state. Udall's campaign attempted to paint Gardner as inhospitable to abortion and contraceptive access. But Gardner said he supported making birth control available over the counter, and disavowed his previous support for a fetal personhood law.
Read more here.
--Matt Ferner
ABC and FOX project that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) will win his re-election over Democrat Mary Burke.
Koch-backed group starts ads in #Louisiana Senate runoff (from @AP) #LASen http://t.co/RSOw5C6HSE
- Melinda Deslatte (@MelindaDeslatte) November 5, 2014
HuffPost's Laura Bassett reports:
Voters in Colorado rejected an anti-abortion ballot measure on Tuesday that would have granted personhood rights to developing fetuses from the moment of fertilization.
The ballot measure, known as Amendment 67, would have amended the state's criminal code to include fetuses in the category of 'human' and 'child.'
Read more here.
HuffPost's Mariah Stewart reports:
Voters in Ferguson, Missouri, faced long lines at polls Tuesday after a push by voting rights advocates encouraging residents of the St. Louis suburb to vote.
Some voters in Ferguson, where there have been protests since the police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in August, were still waiting to vote more than an hour after polls closed. St. Louis Alderman Antonio French said local media reported voters waiting 90 minutes to cast ballots. A St. Louis Post-Dispatch photo showed a long line at a polling location after paper ballots ran out.
Read more here.
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) was handily re-elected to a third term Tuesday, defeating his Democratic opponent by double digits.
'When I first ran for office, I pledged to be an independent conservative voice that would stand up to the Washington establishment and always vote in the interest of hardworking Tennesseans,' DesJarlais said in a statement after his win. 'I look forward to continuing our fight in the next Congress as we work to return our country back to the Constitutional principles it was founded on.'
DesJarlais represents a conservative district, and his real fight for survival came during the GOP primary. In that race, the congressman defeated his opponent by just 38 votes.
DesJarlais has been hounded by criticism since 2012, when The Huffington Post was first to report that he had once pressured his mistress to get an abortion -- even though DesJarlais touts himself as being opposed to abortion. Complicating the matter even more, the woman was a patient of DesJarlais, who is a physician.
DesJarlais also struggled in fundraising this cycle.
-- Amanda Terkel
The Associated Press called Florida's 2nd District for Democrat Gwen Graham Tuesday evening. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Graham led Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) by just over 1 percentage point.
Graham's campaign capitalized on a handful of Southerland campaign missteps in this northern Florida district. The Democrat called an all-male campaign fundraiser Southerland hosted in the spring 'offensive.' Southerland laughed off his challenger's criticism in response.
'I live with five women. That's all I'm saying. I live with five women,' Southerland said. 'Listen: Has Gwen Graham ever been to a lingerie shower? Ask her. And how many men were there?'
Graham's last name may also have helped her, as she is the daughter of Democrat Bob Graham, a popular former Florida governor and senator.
Emily's List, which works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights, referenced Southerland's ads attempting to obfuscate his record on the Violence Against Women Act in a statement congratulating Graham on her victory.
'Gwen Graham took on one of the most extreme Republicans in Congress, and held him accountable for his record of voting against hardworking women and families,' Emily's List President Stephanie Schriock said in a statement Tuesday. 'Steve Southerland made it clear that he was not interested in moving Florida or the country forward, and tried time and time again to mislead women voters about his extreme policies.'
-- Samantha Lachman
Although polls have found almost 90 percent public support for medical marijuana in Florida, a state measure that would have legalized cannabis for medicinal purposes failed on Tuesday.
A majority of voters approved of Amendment 2, about 57 percent, but state law requires a supermajority of support -- that is, 60 percent or higher -- meaning there wasn't enough momentum for the ballot initiative to pass.
Read more here.
--Matt Ferner
Scott Brown, who was briefly a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, took his talents up the road and tried to get elected in New Hampshire. Things didn't work out. So where should he try next?
Maine: Brown has some ties to Maine -- he was born in Kittery, after all. He'll have to wait until 2018, however, when Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) is up for re-election. But that may work out for the best. In a 2005 report in the Bangor Daily News, Todd Benoit asked political scientist James P. Melcher about how carpetbaggers fare in Maine politics. According to Melcher, 'For the most part, being from away is not a large obstacle politically in Maine once one has put in the time to understand the state.'
New Jersey: Brown received his basic training for the Massachusetts Army National Guard at Fort Dix in New Jersey. There won't be an opportunity to run, however, until Democrat Bob Menendez is up for re-election in 2018. But it's not a particularly favorable electorate for Republicans. Aside from the brief period of time that Chris Christie appointee Jeff Chiesa warmed the seat, the Garden State hasn't had a GOP senator since Nicholas Brady did a similar seat-warming act in 1982. The last time New Jersey elected a Republican senator was Clifford P. Case in the 70's.
New York: Back when Brown was having his hot body photographed by Wilhemina Models, he attended the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. So he has some thin ties to the Empire State. And we know that New York doesn't mind electing someone from out of state to the Senate, right? The problem is, his next chance will come in 2016 against Chuck Schumer, and it's going to take someone of greater skill than Brown to unseat him.
Vermont: I suppose Brown could just go a few miles west and set up shop in Vermont? 'Hey, this is just an upside-down version of New Hampshire,' Brown will say to himself, adding, 'I can take this, brah.' Of course, Vermont is famously liberal. But come on, wouldn't you want to see a 2018 debate with Scott Brown getting straight owned by Bernie Sanders? I would watch the hell out of that.
Connecticut: The capital of all things posh, white-bread, and vapid, I think Connecticut presents the best opportunity for Brown. Watch out, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).
-- Jason Linkins
The 2014 midterms are being watched far beyond America's border, and one observer has already made it up its mind: the midterms prove that President Barack Obama is a failure.
Global Times, an English-language subsidiary of the Chinese Communist Party-run People's Daily, published a typically strong-worded editorial on Election Night 2014 that took direct aim at the president.
'Obama always utters 'Yes, we can,' which led to the high expectations people had for him. But he has done an insipid job, offering nearly nothing to his supporters. U.S. society has grown tired of his banality,' Global Times wrote, citing the president's failure to stem income inequality and the rise of ISIS.
The paper noted that Obama's ability to effect change is limited because he operates in an increasingly partisan political environment. But it used that understanding to make a broader critique of U.S. society: 'That party interests are placed higher than the interests of the country and its people is an inherent shortcoming of Western political systems. The problem is particularly acute when the US undergoes difficulties. Cohesion in American society is diminishing.'
The bleak editorial concludes by saying that as it watches these elections, China is more familiar with the U.S. -- and its shortcomings -- than ever.
'With China's rise, we gradually have the ability to have a clear understanding of the US. The country is too lazy to reform. US society selected Obama, but there is no great American president in this era,' the editorial said.
-- Akbar Shahid Ahmed
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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