Tuesday’s strangest ballot initiatives

A voter fills out a ballot in Watervliet, N.Y. Voters around New York state got to pick new lawmakers in five special elections, including three legislative seats left empty following corruption convictions. (Photo: Mike Groll/Associated Press)

With more than a year left in the presidential race, it might be easy to overlook the fact that Tuesday was still Election Day in the United States. But votes were indeed being cast around the country, with the absence of high-profile candidates leaving room on the ballot for some interesting state and local initiatives.

Ohio’s failed marijuana measure garnered a lot of attention, not only because it stood to make the Buckeye State the first in the Midwest to legalize the drug for medical and recreational use but also because of a provision restricting commercial cannabis growth and distribution to a short list of facilities owned by legalization proponents. Ohio voters weren’t the only ones presented with some unusual proposals this Election Day, however.

Washington state: Save the pangolins

Thanks to the financial support of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Washington state’s ballot included an initiative to outlaw the sale or trade of body parts and products derived from a number of endangered animals.

The measure aims to protect animals that face extinction, at least in part because of their black market value, including elephants, sharks, rhinoceros, cheetahs, lions, marine turtles, rays, tigers, leopards and pangolins.

Perhaps the least recognizable animal on that list, the pangolin, is actually the world’s most trafficked mammal, wildlife experts say. It’s the only known mammal armored with a coat of keratin scales, and this prehistoric-looking creature’s only real predators are human poachers.

According to the New York Times, customs agents seize thousands of pangolins from Southeast Asia and parts of Africa every year. In places like China and Vietnam, there’s a demand not only for the pangolin’s ground-up scales — perpetuated by the unsubstantiated belief that they can cure a range of ailments from lactation problems to cancer — but also for its meat, a delicacy that can go for $150 a pound at restaurants.

“We all have a responsibility to protect endangered animals, and Washington state can serve as a model to lead the way in disrupting the market for these products,” Allen said after launching his effort to get Initiative 1401 on the ballot back in April. “If we turn away from our responsibility to protect our planet, these species will become extinct.”

Washingtonians agreed, and Allen’s initiative passed with 71 percent of the vote across the state.

San Francisco versus Airbnb

Among a number of housing-related measures on the ballot in San Francisco on Tuesday was one that sought to impose tougher restrictions on short-term housing rentals, including a 75-day-per-year limit for all rentals regardless of whether residents are renting out their entire home or just a room.

The initiative’s biggest target was inarguably the San Francisco-based sharing startup Airbnb, which spent more than $8 million campaigning against it. But the proposal has encountered opposition beyond Airbnb’s. According to the Los Angeles Times, critics argued that cracking down on short-term rentals was hardly a sufficient solution for the city’s affordable-housing shortage.

The contentious measure, known as Proposition F, failed to pass with only 45 percent of the vote — a victory for Airbnb and its supporters.

“Voters stood up for working families’ right to share their homes and opposed an extreme, hotel-industry-backed measure,” Christopher Nulty, a spokesperson for Airbnb, said in a statement. Nulty said the company’s effort to kill the initiative, which included door-to-door campaigning by local users, “showed that home sharing is both a community and a movement.”

Ousted Michigan lawmakers ask voters for forgiveness

In one of the most unusual ballot measures being considered Tuesday, recently ousted Michigan lawmakers Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat, both tea party Republicans, were seeking re-election two months after their extramarital affair and bizarre cover-up scheme cost them their jobs.

Courser and Gamrat’s illicit relationship came to light in August when a former Courser aide released an audio recording of the representative asking him to “leak” an email in which Courser anonymously accused himself of being a “porn-addicted sex deviant” and of having sex with a male prostitute outside a Lansing nightclub — a convoluted attempt to hide his actual sex scandal behind a fake one.

Though the aide refused to participate in the ploy — reporting Courser for wrongdoing before being fired — the email still went out to a number of Courser supporters and prominent local Republicans. Courser and Gamrat were ultimately accused of misconduct, including misusing taxpayer funds to conceal their affair. Last month, Courser announced his resignation ahead of a vote in the state House of Representatives to expel him. Gamrat, on the other hand, fought to save her seat and became the fourth lawmaker ousted in the state’s history.

“Voters didn’t have a voice in what happened in Lansing,” Gamrat told the Associated Press before Tuesday’s election. “I believe it should be up to the people, not the politicians.”

In a post on his campaign website, which he also shared on his Facebook page, Courser implored the people of his district to “please remember as you go to vote about my efforts as one of the lone voices for Liberty in the legislature. I have and will remain a steadfast proponent to advance the cause of Liberty and Freedom.”

Neither Courser nor Gamrat succeeded in getting back their seats.