Stateline.org

Mixed Messages on Ballot Measures

November 8, 2006

Even as seven more states on Election Day joined the 20 states that already had passed constitutional prohibitions on gay marriage, Arizona has become the first state in the country to reject a ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage.

On the same night, South Dakota voters refused to make their state a test case in the fight to outlaw abortion. South Dakota voters pulled the plug on an attempt to challenge the landmark abortion case of Roe v. Wade, as citizens there overrode a law that would have banned abortion in that state. In a ballot campaign that drew nationwide attention and dollars, opponents of the ban succeeded in taking it off the books by a vote of 56 percent to 44 percent with 99 percent of votes tallied.

Among the most contentious of the 205 measures on ballots in 37 states was a proposal on stem cell research in Missouri. The measure to write protections for stem cell research into the Missouri Constitution may win by a narrow margin. It was leading 51 percent to 49 percent with 96 percent of precincts reporting.

Anti-tax activists lost campaigns to impose limits on state spending in Maine, Nebraska and Oregon through what are popularly called a Taxpayers' Bill of Rights.

Minimum wage hikes passed in six states -- Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Ohio. Likewise, voters in at least nine states passed ballot measures to limit government's power to condemn private land through eminent domain. But more controversial proposals to reimburse landowners for land-use restrictions failed in California, Idaho and Washington.

Get a more detailed look at hotly contested measures on state ballots, compiled by stateline.org from projections by The Associated Press, CNN, the National Conference of State Legislatures and local news sources.