It was a brutal night for those who believe in marriage equality. Bans on same-sex marriage were enacted by voters in Florida, Arizona and California. In Arkansas, a measure to ban adoptions by persons cohabitating outside marriage was approved. (Pro-life groups backed this anti-adoption measure, by the way). What to do?

The long-term prospects for gay couples who want to marry remain good, despite these setbacks. But same-sex marriage supporters need to figure out how to speak to those who are wary of changing the legal definition of marriage — but are sympathetic to the needs of gay folks. I think there needs to be particular attention to developing a way of talking to people of faith whose churches are adamantly opposed to same-sex unions.

The separation of church and state arguments, even the anti-discrimination arguments, are valid and have their strengths, but I’d like to see something that has a certain religiosity. Gay couples who are themselves devout need to be at the front of this effort. Such couples could explain that for them, marriage is not merely about equality or about love or about getting certain legal protections. it’s part of living a Godly, moral life. By getting married, they don’t wish to change the sacred tradition of marriage, they want to honor that tradition.

Winners:

Political reform. In California, the big longshot — redistricting reform, which has a near perfect record of losing at the ballot — came in. Prop 11, which strips the legislature of the right to draw state legislative districts (Congressional districts were exempted) — passed. It’s a stunning win (and one your blogger predicted would not happen). This redistricting measure is a modest reform, but the victory suggests that political reform on the ballot may be possible — at least if there isn’t much of a campaign against it. Look for future measures on open primary and perhaps other reforms. And in Colorado, Prop 54 — which had little money and faced a huge, expensive, labor campaign againts it — also appears to have scored a triumph. The measure is a tight ban on "pay to play." If a company or union has a contract with the government, it can’t give money. Labor leaders here in Denver last night say they will challenge it in court.

The initiative process. Voters turned down the greatest in the country to the initiative process, Arizona’s "majority rules" measure, which would have established a near impossible standard for passing an initiative: a majority of all the state’s registered voters (not just the voters who show up on election day). Measure O, a legislative referendum to make it more difficult to qualify an initiative to change the state constitution, also went down.

At a training session for Spanish-speaking volunteers here last month in a community theater in a predominantly Latino northeast city neighborhood, a senior official of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign mentioned a poll that had the Democratic nominee winning two-thirds of Latino voters in Colorado.

“Do you think this is hard support?” the official asked the room.

“No,” answered the crowd of volunteers, a bit wearily.

The official nodded: “A lot of us think that it’s soft support too.”

For all the media fretting about whether Obama can close the deal with white voters in rural and exurban parts of the Rust Belt, the soft underbelly of Obama’s impressive campaign may be the predominantly Latino precincts of Mountain West, in hotly contested states such as Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado.
Obama is almost certain to win the Latino vote here and around the country. But he needs more than a positive margin among Latinos in Colorado and in other red states from Nevada to Florida. He needs to bring out Latinos in unprecedented numbers.

Anyone out there know any good recipes for crow? I’m preparing to eat some when it comes to one initiative on the ballot: Prop 11.

As I wrote here several months ago in an exchange with Tony Quinn, I’ve long believed that this attempt at redistricting reform was a waste of time and had no chance. (I compared redistricting’s chances to the prospects of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers–always bad). I still believe Prop 11 is probably a waste of time (nothing wrong with ending the conflict of interest, but redistricting won’t do very much to change the mix in the legislature, as the Public Policy Institute of California has shown), but I no longer believe it has no chance.

The latest Field Poll shows Prop 11 with a 45 percent to 30 percent lead. That’s no guarantee of victory — the initiative needs a majority — but things are moving in the right direction. Even if much of the huge undecided vote breaks against the measure, it’s a good bet that Prop 11 will get just enough to put it over the top.

This piece appeared today in the Washington Post

These days, Californians may be forgiven for feeling as though they are playing host to a dinner party whose guests keep arguing in nastier and nastier terms.

Proposition 8 — the statewide initiative that seeks to add a ban on same-sex marriages to the California constitution, reversing this spring’s court decision legalizing such unions — has turned into a bitter and expensive campaign, even by this sate’s standards. Money has been pouring in on both sides of the issue, from churches, businesses and human rights groups around the country. With more than $60 million raised for and against the initiative, contributions to Prop 8 already exceed the combined total of all donations in the 22 previous campaigns over gay marriage measures in other states around the country.

The outcome is very much in doubt, with polls showing a tight race. But even if supporters of same-sex marriage manage to defeat Prop 8 and preserve the legality of such marriages here, their campaign against Prop 8 may eventually be considered something of a setback for the cause of marriage equality.

Watching TV in California these days is enough to make you physically ill. The problem? The ads for and against Prop 2, the initiative to regulate farm animal confinement. The Yes ads, produced by the Humane Society of the United States (perhaps the leading practitioner and defender of ballot initiative campaigns in the country), have — in a small box on the screen (the full screen was deemed too disturbing for viewers) — video of farm animals in distress.

The no campaign warns about salmonella and other diseases if Prop 2 passes and animals are free to walk around. The yes campaign has responded to this by saying that the current use of caged animals actually contributes to salmonella. So, both sides are talking about salmonella.

Germans seeking to expand direct democracy face a steep, historical obstacle: the Nazi use of plebiscites has widely discredited direct legislation. But a group of mostly young Germans (many of them with ties to the environmental movement) think the country should have the initiative and referendum all all levels of government.

So, for the last 8 years, they’ve been driving a bus around Germany. They take turns living on the bus, often for months at a time. They visit towns and talk with people about the virtues of direct democracy. They’ve been having success. Use of the direct democracy is now common in German localities. There have been thousands of measures, many of them on the same local development controversies that appear on American ballots. And more and more Gemran states are adopting direct democracy. But no such luck yet at the federal level.

Fox and Hounds contributor Joe Mathews is currently attending a conference in Switzerland on direct democracy, and is sending special reports on his experiences in Europe and how they contrast with California.

Think like a philosopher and write like a farmer – That’s the motto of the In-House Drafting Committee, one of the most interesting government offices I’ve come across. The committee handles the official translation of all legislation — including initiatives and referenda — in Switzerland. It’s a crucial role in a country with three major national languages — German, French and Italian. They do not have a light hand–they do serious editing for clarity and for constitutionality. The office has an interesting collection of people: historians, political scientists, linguists and two– count ‘em, two — theologians. (They’re considered particularly good on questions of ethics, morality and the original meaning of texts).

Fox and Hounds contributor Joe Mathews is currently attending a conference in Switzerland on direct democracy, and is sending special reports on his experiences in Europe and how they contrast with California.

I spent Tuesday morning at the Kafigturm, the former women’s prison in Bern that has been converted into the leading spot for holding political forums, press conferences and meetings. (It’s a short walk from the headquarters of the government and the Parliament). My reporter friends and I visited with Hans-Urs Wili, a Swiss institution who has been spent the last third of a century (today was the day when he reached exactly one-third, and this man knows how to count) as the Swiss referee in matters of direct democracy. His title is head of the department of political rights at the federal chancellery. As such, he advises lawmakers and citizens alike in matters of referenda and initiatives.

His is the office to which you turn in signatures. Just as Liz Hill, the legislature’s non-partisan analyst in California, was long known as the budget nun, Wili is the Swiss initiative monk.

I’m visiting Switzerland this week, touring the country with other journalists interested in direct democracy and speaking at a global conference on ballot initiatives and referenda. Here’s a dispatch from the road:

Over a bratwurst lunch Monday in an Alpine mountain pass, Sustenpass, I had an interesting back-and-forth with Bruno Kaufmann, the Swiss-Swedish journalist who is president of the Initiative & Referendum Institute Europe. The subject? Residency and the nature of voting.

Bruno was born Swiss, and remains a citizen. In fact, he’s considered a citizen in two different Swiss municipalities to which he and his family have ties. But Bruno lives with his wife and children in Sweden. He votes in all three places (though he only gets a Swiss federal ballot in one of the two Swiss towns). Shocked? This is perfectly legal, since citizenship here is granted locally, not federally.