Word: ballots
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...maverick tendencies and keen political insight, McCall was best known as a founder of the environmentalist movement. Even in his dying months, he campaigned vociferously for legislation to save the environment, leading a battle against a November ballot measure that would have ended the land use planning policies he created in Oregon...
...House voted 2 to 1 to raise its pay 15%, to $69,800. But then the lawmakers got cold feet: a move to revoke the increase was barely defeated when the House deadlocked, 208 to 208. House Speaker Tip O'Neill, who usually does not vote, cast a ballot for the raise...
...since the Depression had Americans used the mechanisms of initiative and referendum, those venerable tools of direct democracy, in greater numbers or with wider impact. From cracking down on crime to denying electroshock therapy in Berkeley, Calif., there were 237 statewide ballot measures in 42 states and the District of Columbia. California fielded the most, a bumper-sticker crop...
Unlike the spate of ballot measures in 1980, this year's proposals raised issues that were somewhat more liberal than conservative in intent. The trickle of tax-revolt measures that followed after Proposition 13 was approved in California in 1978 seems nearly to have dried up. Indeed, more than the election of a candidate, referendums and initiatives defined voter feeling on specific issues, and citizens were most vocal about nuclear arms, the quality of the environment and crime...
...Democrats campaigned hard for the re-election of State Senator John Wilson, even though the 43-year-old legislator died of lung cancer nearly two months ago. Wilson's Republican opponent, J. Everett Ware, did not slack off either. "Being that there was a dead man on the ballot, I felt obliged to make a serious campaign," he said. Since Wilson had died 24 hours past the deadline to change the ballot, Democratic officials had to support his posthumous candidacy with the hope of winning so they would have a chance to retain the seat in the subsequent special...