Subscribe
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Apts
Classifieds
Shop
With Barack Obama in the White House and Democrats in firm control of the U.S. House and Senate, Republicans will likely still have a path to influence any legislation. Democrats in the Senate are on track to fall just shy of the 60 votes needed to quash a filibuster, meaning Republican senators still have to sign off on any major new laws.
When Republicans had control of the White House and both congressional chambers, some conservative Republican commentators complained about the unfairness of the filibuster rule, allowing minority Democrats to halt the Senate confirmation of judges. Now, that rule doesn’t look so bad to Republicans.
Democrats picked up a whopping six Senate seats from Republicans, giving Obama’s party at least 57 seats. And the fat lady may have yet to utter her final song about the final split: Georgia is headed for a runoff, Minnesota a recount. And a recount is possible in Alaska, where incumbent Republican Ted Stevens was recently convicted of seven felonies. Democrats would have to pick up all three seats – a long shot – to gain the filibuster-proof majority.
Republicans will likely be talking a lot for at least the next two years about the wisdom of the filibuster rule.
Wayne Township voters likely made their decision on a referendum to eliminate the township assessor not so much on good government but for more partisan reasons.
Democrats had just scored an unusual sweep of township offices in 2006, and the heavy Democratic presence in Wayne – not confidence for or against township assessors – probably was the main reason township residents voted not to eliminate Bev Zuber’s elected position.
At the same time, voters in Aboite and St. Joseph townships voted to eliminate the positions of their own well-qualified assessors – both Republicans.
With Obama and Republican Mitch Daniels winning the races at the top of the 2008 ballots Tuesday, many Hoosiers again demonstrated their independence from party labels.
But in Allen County, where John McCain carried the day and Republicans swept all the contested races, straight-ticket voting was relatively heavy – nearly a third of the 152,093 people who voted cast straight ballots. Republicans had feared a swarm of new Obama voters would cast straight D ballots, but in the end, 28,355 Republicans and 20,110 Democrats voted not by the candidate or by the office but strictly along party lines.
Ohioans probably served their interests best by defeating a measure to permit a casino in Clinton County, northeast of Cincinnati, 63 percent to 37 percent. Paradoxically, they helped Hoosiers’ interests, too.
Legalized gambling is arguably an unreliable source of government income, and to the extent that it is a voluntary tax, it tends to be regressive, weighing harder on those least able to pay. So Ohio, an earlier adopter of a state lottery, is probably best to forego the casino revenue.
Indiana government, on the other hand, has become addicted to gambling revenue. So it’s no surprise that the main opponent to the Ohio referendum was the owner of the Argosy casino in Lawrenceburg, which depends heavily on Cincinnati-area patrons – and spent $27 million in efforts to defeat the Ohio casino.
Still, proponents of Ohio casino gambling won’t give up and say they will try next to propose a series of casinos in several areas of the state to win more support.
