BY ED FELIEN
Liberals and progressives were disappointed Tuesday, Nov. 4, with the loss of the U.S. Senate and the loss of the Minnesota State House to Republic-ans. Dayton and Franken won easily, but the national losses cast a long shadow. It looks like Republican gridlock and handouts to fat cats for the near future. Of course, all this will change in 2016. If, as expected, the Democrats win the Presidency again, chances are very good that they will also win the Senate; whereas this time Democrats were defending seats in red states, two years from now Republicans will be defending seats in blue states, and the margin of victory in half of the Republican turnover races for the Minnesota House was 1%. Those could easily flip back.
Another result that has been downplayed in the election was the victories for legalization of recreational marijuana in Oregon and Washington, D.C. Washington State passed a tough gun control law that requires criminal background checks for all purchases; it will probably be the model for legislation across the country. In four solidly Republican states initiatives passed to raise the minimum wage in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. San Francisco passed a referendum calling for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, and Illinois in a non-binding referendum told the legislature to raise the minimum wage. In Hawaii, Maui County passed a referendum calling for a halt to the use of Genetically Modified Organisms by Monsanto, in spite of the more than $8 million Monsanto spent to defeat it.
Closer to home, it was sad that our friend Andy Dawkins didn’t do better in his race for attorney general. The Green Party had hopes that his candidacy would gain more than 5% of the vote and give them major party status again. He only got 1.5% statewide. The Legalize Marijuana Now candidate got 3%. They both did better in the Powderhorn precinct. Andy got 6.5% and LMN got 6%.
Captain Jack Sparrow, the Occupirate, got almost 23% of the vote against DFL incumbent Peter McLaughlin. That’s a little better than average running as a third party candidate against McLaughlin.
City voters raised the filing fees for candidates 65% to 35% (which we opposed) and eliminated the mandatory food requirements in restaurants serving wine 83.5% to 16.5% (which we strongly supported).
Wonderful stuff.