Way up here in Alaska, comes a new political tactic that boggles my mind. Republicans have relied on the gerrymander for years to tip the scales, and now comes a new way to slice and dice the voter pool. This tactic is either unconstitutional, or a complete game changer. The only question now is whether their approach is a new tool that progressives should also consider.
Long story short (or as short as I can make it): back in 2014, Alaskans voted to legalize marijuana. The anti marijuana forces don’t like to take Yes for an answer, however. Here in the Kenai Peninsula Borough, the “Big Marijuana. Big Mistake” campaign has regrouped. They have qualified a ballot initiative to make commercial marijuana business illegal outside of borough cities. The important wrinkle, hidden in the fine print, is that the only residents eligible to vote on this proposition are those who live outside the cities. City residents pay borough taxes, and live in the borough, but are excluded from participating in this election because the rules will only apply outside city borders!
Marijuana activists prepare for KPB vote
“Another challenge of the get-out-the-vote campaign is that only residents outside city limits are eligible — a fact that Jackman said sometimes confuses prospective voters and complicates the group’s strategizing. It requires the group to be more specific in its calling and door-to-door campaigning. Keep Cannabis Legal is also trying to address voter confusion with an interactive map on their website that returns an eligibility status for an address.”
Hell, almost any progressive ballot measure would pass statewide or countywide if you limited the voting pool to city residents.
Want to ban guns in your state, but the rural residents would vote the other way? Put up a ballot measure that makes guns illegal in any city, then only let the cities vote on it. NOT individually, as we normally approach ballot measures, but as a unified statewide vote of all cities. Want to raise the minimum wage in every city? Or pass universal healthcare in every city? Every one of these votes would pass in a landslide.
Question: does this approach break any constitutional or other legal limits? If it is legal, and it works, then we should expect regressives to learn from this approach and apply it again in the future. We should start considering how to use this tactic ourselves to best effect.
And no, I can’t quite see Russia from here. Yet...