Initiative and Referendum

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Overview of November 2001 Ballot Measures
Information from the Initiative & Referendum Institute, www.ballotwatch.org

Washington:

• Initiative 747, which limited property tax levy increases to 1% per year (unless an increase greater than this limit is approved by the voters), passed with 59%.
  

• Initiative 773, which imposed an additional sales tax on cigarettes (making it the highest in the nation), passed by 65%.

• Initiative 775, which created a "home care quality authority" to establish qualifications and standards for publicly funded individual providers of in-home care services to elderly and disabled adults, passed by 64%.
  

• Washington voters defeated a legislative referendum that would have allowed the state to invest state funds in the stock market, 42% to 57%.

Colorado:

• Voters overwhelmingly defeated the citizen-initiated Amendment 26, which would have expended $50 million of Colorado's 2001 tax refund revenues to fund a high-speed monorail. The measure lost 34% to 66%.

California:

• San Francisco voters overwhelmingly approved a $100 million bond issue to pay for solar power in public buildings and authorized city supervisors to underwrite renewable energy projects without voter approval.
  

• Carson, a Los Angeles suburb, decided not to secede from the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District. With 772,000 children, the Los Angeles school district is the nation's second largest after New York.

Florida:

• Miami Beach voters approved a measure providing employee benefits to gay and heterosexual domestic partners.

Michigan:

• Voters in Traverse City and Kalamazoo defeated amendments that would have prevented city officials from enacting policies protecting gays from discrimination. In Huntington Woods, Michigan voters upheld a city ordinance banning anti-gay discrimination.

Texas:

• In Houston, voters narrowly approved a measure to prevent Houston from offering health benefits to partners of gay and lesbian municipal employees.

Maine:

• In Portland, voters approved a non-binding resolution in support of single-payer healthcare.

• In addition to Colorado and Washington, three other states had statewide legislative referendums on the ballot. Maine voters approved six bond measures. New York voters approved an amendment making the text of their state's constitution gender-neutral. Texas voters approved 19 legislative referendums and bond measures.