Ballot measures that will change Appalachia on Election Day

From dying with dignity, to reproductive freedom, to funneling money to private schools, y'all have some important ass measures to vote on.

Tomorrow is election day, y’all. And for those of you in swing states, the hellscape barrage of ads and text messages from hungry politicians will soon be over.

Most of the attention is focused on the presidential race and a handful of down-ballot offices, but the place where people exercise the most power are on ballot measures.

Ballot measures are an opportunity for voters to directly decide on an isolated issue, rather than elect someone who promises to do the thing you vaguely care about them doing. And LORD, Appalachia has some damn important ones.

I’ve picked a few worth mentioning and what my thoughts are on them below. I also included a brief summary of the statewide ballot issues in Florida and how I voted on them at the very bottom of this post.

A right to die with dignity in the Mountain State

This is one of the more difficult concepts to process. Voluntary euthanasia, often referred to as someone’s “right to die”, often comes up when someone has a terminal illness and — whether due to pain or some other reason — their quality of life has severely diminished with no prospect of it improving.

Only nine states allow for a right to die, typically called assisted suicide.¹²

I tried watching a documentary on the subject once. While it was powerful and important, I genuinely could not bring myself to finish it because of how incredibly sad it was.

Where I stand on the issue

I’m not extremely well-versed on the nuances of it, but I have always felt that one should have the right to make this decision. Who am I to demand that someone prolong their misery if there is a humane, safe, and compassionate alternative?³

West Virginia’s ballot measure

West Virginia’s legislature put a constitutional measure on the ballot this year prohibiting a right to die. To be perfectly clear, right to die is already illegal in West Virginia, but this would codify it in the state’s constitution.

This is bad policy, in my opinion. Terminally ill patients should not be forced to endure the pain, misery, and financial hardship that can otherwise be prevented. Friend-of-the-show Rusty Williams characterizes it perfectly:

“I think that your end-of-life care is some of the most personal decisions you could possibly make. Most folks agree that, ‘Mountaineers are always free,’” he told WSAZ. “That’s something that we take very seriously, and enshrining a prohibition on the last free choice a Mountaineer can make -- it’s just the wrong way to go. (Source)

The supporters of this measure couch it in terms of a broader “pro-life” movement, which is an absurd argument…but I digress.

Can’t vouch for Amendment 2 in the Bluegrass State

The debate on school choice is one that has quickly been co-opted by the conservative right in the past decade or so. Prior to that, mainstream Democrats were outwardly supportive of things like charter schools — President Obama in particular. I think there’s room for a little nuance when it comes to charter schools, though I think in general we should be focused on funding and improving the quality of our traditional public schools.⁴

That being said, private school vouchers are bad policy 99.9/100 times.⁵ School vouchers, if you aren’t aware, basically allow a student/parent to utilize public funds to be put toward tuition at a private school (in some circumstances they can be used to reimburse for homeschooling).

Vouchers would almost make sense if public schools were consistently well-funded and had more than adequate resources to meet the needs of every student, teacher, and staff member. However, anyone reading this knows how laughable that is — public schools are chronically underfunded, the teaching profession attacked and eroded, and public schools in general constantly under attack by nefarious political interests. School vouchers inherently siphon money away from traditional public schools and toward private schools.

Amendment 2 is no different. It is another attempt to undermine and weaken public schools masked as an opportunity for “school choice.” Kentucky public school superintendents wrote a helpful op-ed opposing Amendment 2 that is worth a read.

Linguistic Fuckery: Ohio’s gerrymandering measure

Ohio has had some pretty big ballot measures in recent years, and this year is no different. The News Record, an independent newspaper published by students at the University of Cincinnati, put together a solid summary:

Summary: This amendment would overhaul Ohio's current redistricting process by replacing the existing politician-controlled system with a new Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission. The commission would consist of 15 members of various demographics: five Democrats, five Republicans and five independents. This panel would be responsible for drawing congressional and state legislative districts, ensuring that they reflect the state’s partisan preferences. Current or former politicians, lobbyists and political consultants would be prohibited from serving on the commission​

Politician-drawn districts suck, big time. Gerrymandering is one of the more nefarious things in American politics and — I would argue — is one of the biggest reasons our political systems are dysfunctional and not representative of voters as a whole *shouts “POLITICIANS SHOULD NOT BE CHOOSING THEIR VOTERS, IT SHOULD BE THE OTHER WAY AROUND!”

The author of this substack post’s interpretation of what a typical gerrymandered district looks like.

Ballot measures are famous for having overly wordy, objectively confusing language that makes the average voter’s eyes glaze over.

That is often by design.

Ohio’s ballot measure on gerrymandering is no different. Nobody loves a good gerrymandered district like an incumbent politician, and in Ohio those tend to be republicans. Which is probably why Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose caught so much heat earlier this year due to how he worded this ballot measure. We won’t go into detail in this post about it, but this article does a decent job of summarizing the controversy if you’re interested.

I would also recommend reading friend-of-the-show D.J. Byrnes’ Substack, The Rooster, for more info on this and everything else Ohio politics.

I support a YES on Issue 1. Redistricting commissions aren’t perfect, but they’re sure as hell better than ceding this responsibility to politicians in vape-filled rooms where accountability is often lacking.

Reproductive freedom and Old Bay

Last, but certainly not least, Maryland.⁶ I’ll keep this brief, but its worth noting that Maryland is voting on a constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion and other reproductive rights into their state constitutional under Question 1.

Obviously, this is extremely important given the landscape of abortion rights in this country. Maryland’s law wasn’t necessarily under threat, but this certainly adds a layer of protection. I know people from West Virginia who chose to give birth in Maryland because of the abortion protections the state offers, so this is important not just for Marylanders themselves.

How I voted

I figure I would share some of the measures I voted on this year, as a newly-minted Florida voter:⁷

• Issue 1: Would require school board races to be partisan. (I voted NO)

• Issue 2: Establishing a constitutional right to fish and hunt (I voted NO)

  • These rights aren’t under threat in Florida and animal rights groups came out against this

• Issue 3: Legalizing weed for recreational use (I voted YES)

• Issue 4: Constitutional right to abortion (I voted YES)

• Issue 5: Making homestead tax exemption adjust with inflation (I voted YES)

• Issue 6: Repeal of public finance campaign requirement (I voted NO)

I’m not going to talk about all of these, but I do want to mention issue 4. (Issue 3 is an obvious one for me if you have been a listener of our podcast).

I believe the vote I cast FOR Issue 4 is the most consequential vote I’ve ever cast. Florida isn’t going to flip blue on election night, but Issue 4 has a real shot at passing, despite the difficult 60% threshold amendments are required to achieve. Polling is a bit scattershot on the amendment itself, but a recent survey had it polling at 54% — below the threshold needed but not insurmountable. Measures like this require big turnout numbers, and I’m hopeful we see that tomorrow. I proudly voted for this because Floridians deserve to have the right to reproductive freedom. I’ll be closely watching this on election night and hoping that YES prevails.

If you made it this far…

Congrats! And thank you for reading! I never know if people actually read all of these posts, or if this stream-of-consciousness rambling gets tossed into the virtual waste bin of oblivion for most people.

Since you did make it this far, I want to let you know that we recently rolled out a paid tier to our substack.

It is totally optional, and I will always be publishing free content on here, but I wanted to give readers an opportunity to support us in this way. In return, you will have access to periodic subscriber-only posts (frequency TBD) as well as access to a private messaging channel on Discord or here (we haven’t figured that out quite yet, but will iron it out soon).

Thanks for reading! Love ya, ‘preciate ya, and go vote if you haven’t already!

1. I’m not sure where the mental health community aligns on this terminology, so I’ve tried to avoid using it very much here.

2. It’s worth noting, there are some technical differences between voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide. Often with assisted suicide, another person (doctor) provides the person with the means to end their own life (i.e. giving them a human, lethal drug cocktail for them to take at their will).

3. Fwiw, I asked Big John about his opinion on this earlier today, and he has similar feelings.

4. I can speak to this issue with some authority because my first full-time job was working at a private school, and it was a pretty bad experience for me personally.

5. I wrote in this caveat because there are some very limited circumstances where students (particularly ones with disabilities) can be better served by attending a private school when public ones aren’t equipped to support them.

6. Before anyone pops off about what is and isn’t Appalachia, save it. There will be an opportunity in future posts, I promise.

7. If you’re new here, I am an Appalachian expat. We’ve been saying it on the show for years, yet somehow the issue still gets brought up on Twitter (Or X, the everything app) once every few months, and it still irks people. Which I find funny.