Word: referendum
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...from gambling as the best way to fund South Carolina's crumbling education system, and grateful video-poker barons have rewarded him with heavy campaign contributions. Beasley has made himself an enemy of the state's gambling interests by calling for a ban on video poker and opposing a referendum on introducing a state lottery...
Those are the sorts of numbers that explain why the President's approval ratings are of little comfort to Democrats. For now, at least, only the most desperate Republican candidates seem inclined to try to turn the election into a referendum on the President's behavior. But Democrats sense that the sex scandal is contributing to a general alienation that will keep voters--particularly their voters--away from the polls. This concern is underscored by the fact that Democratic fund raising is not meeting expectations while G.O.P. coffers are bulging to the point where the party is able to give...
Public opinion and voting opinion have been out of synch for years. But never before in this era of nonvoting has a midterm election turned into a referendum on a question as grave as impeachment. And so there is reason to believe that if Congress moves toward impeachment, many Americans will feel betrayed. An impeachment-bound Congress may find itself trapped in a paradox: by following the imperatives of our democratic process, it undermines its popular legitimacy...
...news for both the country's military rulers and their civilian opposition. "The sudden death of both General Sani Abacha and Moshood Abiola left all sides in disarray," says TIME reporter Clive Mutiso. "It turned the military's planned election -- in which Abacha was the only candidate -- into a referendum over whether a dead man should rule the country. But it also left the opposition without a clear alternative...
However debatable their effectiveness in practice, concealed-carry laws appeal to citizens grown skittish over lethal violence--if only because measures to restrict access to weapons don't seem to have ended the bloodbaths. Last month the Missouri legislature put a concealed-carry referendum on next April's ballot, and lawmakers in Michigan are scheduled to vote on a similar measure soon. "Carrying a gun does not guarantee you won't get hurt," says Suzanna Gratia Hupp, a Texas legislator who crusaded for her state's law, "but it changes the odds." Many Americans will take them...