An Interesting Turn of Events

Nationally, there was a "cleaning of the House", one might say. Not anything out of the ordinary, however, as the number of seats changing hands was right in line with the average for a six-year mid-term election -- but the change is significant nonetheless. The Republicans broke their 1994 Contract with America and paid the price for their breach. A painful but necessary punishment.

Locally, in Katy and Fort Bend County, it was business as usual -- Republicans swept all but one FBC race (Dem County Comissioner Grady Prestage was reelected as expected), and the Katy ISD bond passed as expected. Despite some lackluster and/or questionable GOP condidates, the Dems couldn't manage to put anyone else on the ballot that was compelling or qualified enough to overcome the fact that Dems are still a minority party in FBC.

But there was an interesting contradiction that emerged nationally that I put out there for your thoughful and introspective consideration:

Overwhelmingly, voters (where such issues appeared on their ballots) affirmed the traditional view of marriage by an average vote in favor of 63.6%. Meanwhile, voters also chose to raise their state's minimum wage by an overwhelming majority average of 65.5%.

Here's the breakdown by state with the winning percentage in parentheses:

Affirming Marriage ___Raise Minimum Wage
AZ (rejected - 51%)_______AZ (66%)
CO (56%) _____________CO (53%)
ID (63%)______________MO (76%)
SC (78%)______________MT (73%)
SD (52%)______________NV (69%)
TN (80%) -Wow!_________OH (56%)
VA (57%)
WI (59%)

Now, it's no national referendum - and the fact that there is overlap in only two states makes it exceptionally unscientific, but it makes you wonder about the nature of the electorate that a traditionally liberal issue (raising the minimum wage) should pass just as easily (actually, with even a stronger margin of victory) as a traditionally conservative issue (affirming marriage).

And just a brief comment about Arizona: talk about a strange place... the same place that narrowly rejected a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage (51-49), approved an increase in their minimum wage (66-34), and overwhelmingly established English as their official language (74-26). No wonder this is the land of Senator John McCain!

Overall, a very interesting turn of events, indeed!