Progressive laws passing in red states
Thank Gawd for ballot measures, because otherwise these laws would never pass.
South Dakota voters voted to broaden Medicaid to roughly 42,500 low-income residents starting in mid-2023. The measure passed 56% to 44%, according to South Dakota Secretary of State data.“South Dakotans know their families and neighbors deserve health care without going into debt or avoiding check-ups, procedures, and medication they need,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of The Fairness Project, which backed the measure.
It’s the seventh successful effort to expand Medicaid in Republican-led states, which began with the approval of Maine voters in 2017. Ballot initiatives have also passed in Missouri, Oklahoma, Idaho, Nebraska and Utah in recent years.
Republican politicians have fought this tooth-and-nail. It's become obvious that Republicans don't represent their voters anymore than Democrats do.
Nebraska is projected to approve a $15 minimum wage for workers amid a nationwide push for wage hikes that has predominantly taken hold in liberal states like New York, California and Illinois.The referendum, called Initiative Measure 433, garnered support from 59% of voters in Nebraska, while ballots opposing the measure stood at 41%, according to results reported by ABC News on Wednesday.
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Battleground or conservative-leaning states have used ballot measures to impose more modest wage hikes in previous years. Voters in Arkansas, Missouri and Arizona brought the wage in their states as high as $12 per hour, according to the nonprofit research firm Ballotpedia.
Here's another issue that Republican politicians have fought hard against, but their own voters are supporting. Like Medicaid, this is a universal program.
Legalized recreational marijuana is coming to Maryland and Missouri, but failed to become a reality in North Dakota, South Dakota and Arkansas, according to election results from ballot measures.The 2022 election referendums in the five states, which currently offer medicinal marijuana to their adult residents, were highly watched by proponents of legalizing marijuana for adult use. With Maryland and Missouri, 21 states and the District of Columbia now offer legalized recreational pot to their residents.
This one Republican politicians no longer fight against as hard, because they can see which way the wind blows. Even the Dakota's, which rejected recreational marijuana this year, approved medical marijuana in recent years.
Comments
We got
the legalization of magic mushrooms in CO. But we're pretty purple anyway. However, we voted down being able to buy wine in any grocery store- the beer/packie lobby won that one.
Still, being able to microdose a tad bit of psilocybin along with my weed will make putting up with some of the rest of this shit a bit easier.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
This is good news
wish there was more of it, but it's such an uphill slog for most. Too bad there isn't enough politicians to do the peoples work.
Yes Medicaid was voted in for Utah
and the way the bill was written gave good coverage, however the legislature didn’t like spending money on poor people and so they rewrote the bill and did lots of damage to who it would cover and of course they put work requirements in it. I don’t remember what happened with the lawsuit. Ya just can’t have kids whose parents don’t work getting health care.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
CO has a COLA on Min Wage
Which is a good thing even though min is at 12.65 or something now, at least on Jan 1 it will go up accordingly, and forever more. Restaurant workers still below min.
Considering how much has inflated, not only this year but every year at least some, min should probably be above 20.
We live in a country that only begrudgingly provides
for the basic needs of its own populace. Additionally, our elected ‘representation’ has spent the past several generation prioritizing the snuffing out of other countries who ‘threaten our freedom and our democracy’ by the act of nationalizing their own natural resources and assets for the benefit of their own people. We call it ‘regime change’ which is sold under the banner of ‘spreading democracy’ by the means of ‘Shock and Awe.‘
This is the US foreign policy of the Dulles Brothers, which very much continues to this day, disregarding of the needs and wishes of its own population in the process. Benevolent ballot measures that do manage to pass are subsequently subjected to neutering by ‘amendments’ provided by our ‘duly elected representatives’ in Congress. It’s all a sham.
We do not have a functional democracy, we have something diabolically disguised to look like one. Our votes will only be allowed to support the status quo and will never be allowed to effect any significant change to the contrary. It’s the hallmark of the Big Fucking Club That We Ain’t In.
We need to get over it, or get used to it.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
That's America for you
In a nutshell. It's got it's mythology, greatest political system, democracy, best economic system, capitalism. But as you point out both both systems are in bed with each other, and been cheating on us forever. Where else do people want programs that could improve their lives and be called socialist, traitor, leftist.
where else?
the many vassal states of the corporate Murica empire.
Fortunately fewer nations are going along with this neocon
nightmare, as some still have to deal with their suffering
citizens.
Diabolical indeed.
Perfect. And, yes, the word diabolically belongs there.