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It looks
like Oregon is about to become the third state to legalize
marijuana. With more than 50 percent of precincts
reporting, the results are 55 percent in favor, 45 percent
against. Residents of Washington, D.C., also
voted to legalize marijuana today. 

Oregon’s
Measure 91, also known as the Control, Regulation, and
Taxation of Marijuana and Industrial Hemp Act, combines elements of
Colorado’s Amendment
64 and Washington’s I-502.
Like both of those initiatives, it allows adults 21 or older to
purchase and possess up to an ounce of marijuana at a time. Like
Amendment 64, it allows nonprofit transfers of up to an ounce. That
provision protects people from arrest for sharing pot, which
otherwise can be treated as criminal distribution, even if it’s
limited to passing a joint. 

Measure 91’s decriminalization of marijuana use does not apply
to consumption in any “public place,” defined as “a place to which
the general public has access.” By comparison, Colorado prohibits
“consumption that is conducted openly and publicly,” while
Washington forbids consumption “in view of the general public,”
both of which seem to cover less ground. Like Colorado (and unlike
Washington), Oregon’s initiative allows home cultivation, but with
stricter limits: up to four plants and eight ounces of usable
marijuana per household, compared to six plants and whatever amount
they produce per adult in Colorado. 

The Oregon initiative takes a different approach to taxation
than Colorado or Washington, both of which imposed levies based on
a percentage of wholesale and retail prices. Oregon’s initiative
instead would impose taxes on cannabusinesses based on weight: $35
per ounce of buds and $10 per ounce of leaves, plus $5 per immature
plant. 

One distinct advantage of the Oregon initiative is that it does
not change the standard for driving under the influence of
intoxicants (DUII, a.k.a. DUID). Under current law, convicting
someone of DUII requires showing
that he was “affected to a noticeable degree” by marijuana or
another controlled substance, based on
the “totality of the circumstances.” By contrast, Washington’s
current rule, established by I-502, says any driver whose blood
contains five or more nanograms of THC per milliliter is
automatically guilty of DUID, a standard that in
effect prohibits driving
by many daily consumers, including patients who use marijuana as a
medicine, even when they are not actually impaired. 

Amendment 64 did not directly change Colorado’s DUID law, but
after it passed the state legislature approved a law that created a
“rebuttable
presumption” of DUID at five nanograms, which in practice may
have the same impact as Washington’s law. Oregon’s initiative
instead instructs the state Liquor Control Commission, which as in
Washington would be charged with regulating the newly legal
cannabis industry, to study “the influence of marijuana on the
ability of a person to drive a vehicle” and advise the legislature
on whether changing Oregon’s DUII rule is appropriate.

Gleaned mostly from the Libertarian Party’s own updating
page of news of note from election night, herewith the governor
races in which the L.P. is now breaking 2 percent. (There aren’t
many.):

•Dan Feliciano of Vermont is very much beating the
spread at
4.36 percent in a race currently un-called but with
Democrat Peter Shumlin with a narrow lead. This could be
a real chance for GOPers to get mad at Libertarians, whether for
justified reasons or not. (This is one the L.P’s own page hadn’t
caught.)

•Andrew Wyllie in Florida, beating the spread handily in a race
where Republican Rick Scott won, so this is an interesting data
point for the “who do L.P. candidates possibly divert votes from?”
debate,
at 3.76 percent.

•Keen Umbehr in Kansas is beating the spread handily, again in a
race with a Republican, Sam Brownback, winning, with
3.86 percent.

•Barry Hess in Arizona
at 3.83 percent–far better than the 2.2 percent he got running
for the same office in 2010.

•Mark Elworth in Nebraska
at 3.35 percent.

•Andrew Hunt in Georgia
at 2.44 percent.

•Dee Cozzens in
Wyoming at 2.41 percent.

As their prospects dimmed on the approach
to Election Day, Democrats shifted goal posts. They conceded they
wouldn’t win the House. They conceded they’d probably lose the
Senate. Over the last week they settled on making the election
about Scott Walker. If
Walker lost, the conventional wisdom went, it didn’t matter how
well Republicans did elsewhere. Well, Scott Walker won. So did

Rick Synder in Michigan and
Rick Scott in Florida, two other Republican governors who
dabbled in union reforms and were targeted by Democrats in close
races.

In the meantime, as of 11:00 p.m. ET, gubernatorial races in
solidly Democrat Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts are all
too close to call. NPR called
the Vermont race for incumbent Democrat Peter Shumlin but no one
else has. Connecticut has an incumbent Democrat too, one that isn’t
so popular despite
raising taxes, increasing spending, and demonizing guns.

Get the latest results at
Reason 24/7.

Just a quick spotlight on non-Democrat/Republican Senate
candidates who have managed to pull substantially more than one
percent, so far,
using RealClearPolitics’ numbers:

•For the Libertarian Party, the
controversial Sean Haugh of South Carolina is now pulling 3.6,
substantially more than the current very narrow spread between
currently in-the-lead Republican Thom Tillis and Democrat Kay
Hagen.

•But! A L.P. Senate candidate I had not been following at all is
doing even better, Kansas’ Randall Batson,
currently with 4.3 percent, in a race where the number two is also
an Independent, Greg Orman. Batson’s current numbers beat the
spread between Orman and currently in-the-lead Republican incumbent
Pat Roberts.

•In Virginia,
Robert Sarvis is failing to carry over the momentum of his over
6 percent governor results last year, currently at just 2.7, still
a substantial spread-beat between winning Republican Ed Gillespie
and losing Democrat Mark Warner. [UPDATE: In ten minutes
since posting the race has reversed, with Warner now slightly
ahead. All the “winning/losing” declarations in this post are as of
the timestamp.]

•Gaylon Kent, L.P. Senate candidate in Colorado, now at 2.4,
nowhere near the spread between winning Republican Cory Gardner and
losing Democrat Mark Udall.

•In South Carolina, reality TV star of Bravo’s Southern
Charm, former Republican state treasurer with a checkered past
Thomas Ravenel is pulling 7.1 percent as an Independent.

That’s all the Senate races in which
RealClearPolitics is showing a non-major-party
candidate with over 2 percent. And while
RealClearPolitics is currently missing it, L.P. Senate
candidate in Illinois Sharon Hensen is
at 3.64, and L.P. Senate candidate from Kentucky David
Patterson
is at 3.07 (neither are beating the major party
spread).

In
the wake of Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell’s victory over
challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes, Rand Paul—who attended
McConnell’s victory rally—had just one name on his mind: Hillary
Clinton.

Fox News asked Paul about the win; Paul framed the election as a
referendum, not just on Obama, but also on Clinton, who
actively campaigned on behalf of Grimes and Democratic
candidates in other states. According to
Mediaite:

“Mrs. Grimes ran as a Clinton Democrat,” said Paul. “She tried
to disassociate herself with President Obama, so she tried to
attach herself to Hillary Clinton, but it turns out Hillary Clinton
doesn’t have many coattails in Kentucky.

Later in the interview, Paul repeated this line of thinking,
saying the GOP wins are a “repudiation basically of the president’s
policies but also Hillary Clinton.” While he said people were
trying to say that Hillary and Bill Clinton are “somehow
better for Democrats” than Obama is, in Kentucky, “they were
soundly rejected.”

Eventually, Bret Baier couldn’t help but point out that Paul was
taking every possible opportunity to trash Clinton, his most likely
opponent in the 2016 presidential race were he to win the
Republican nomination.

In other words, if anyone is still on the fence about whether
Paul is going to run for president: He is going to run for
president.

As I have noted previously, a Paul vs. Clinton showdown would
invert some the traditional Republican and Democratic Party
positions on
civil liberties, foreign policy, and
drug policy. That is undeniably exciting for libertarians.

Early
returns indicate that Washingtonians
are approving marijuana legalization in the nation’s
capital by a margin of more than 2 to 1. With about 6 percent of
precincts reporting, the
results are 69 percent in favor, 31 percent against. The
lopsided vote, which is consistent with the most recent
poll numbers, reflects a
dramatic turnaround in black voters’ views on legalization,
apparently driven by concerns about marijuana prohibition’s
racially disproportionate impact. 

Nationwide, according to a 2013 ACLU
report, blacks are about four times as likely to be arrested
for marijuana possession as whites, even though they are about
equally likely to smoke pot. In D.C., blacks are eight
times as likely to be busted for pot. D.C. also has a far
higher marijuana arrest rate than any other jurisdiction in the
country: 846 per 100,000 residents in 2010, compared to 535 in New
York City (D.C.’s closest competitor) and a national average of
256. 

Initiative
71 legalizes home cultivation of up to six plants by
adults 21 or older, along with possession of up to two ounces and
transfer of up to an ounce at a time “without remuneration.”
Residents who are not horticulturally inclined and do not have
friends who are will be out of luck unless the D.C. Council

approves a system for commercial production and distribution.
The council
heard testimony on that issue last week, and The Washington
Post reports
that “a majority…has vowed to also take up legislation early next
year that would establish a system to sell and tax marijuana.”

Whatever D.C. voters and legislators do can be undone by
Congress, which has 30 days to
overturn Initiative 71. Congress also can block Initiative 71 by
forbidding D.C. to spend money on implementing it, as it did for
years with the medical marijuana initiative that D.C. voters
approved in 1998. One possibly hopeful sign: When the D.C. Council
made possessing up to an ounce of marijuana a citable offense
subject to a $25 fine earlier this year, Congress let the law take
effect.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.)
responded with an amendment that would have barred the District
from spending public money “to enact or carry out any law, rule, or
regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated
with the possession, use, or distribution” of a controlled
substance. The House approved Harris’ amendment in June, but it
was dropped from
the final version of the spending bill. Harris said he would

try again if Initiative 71 passed.

The Obama administration
opposed the Harris amendment in language that suggests it would
also oppose attempts to override Initiative 71: “The Administration
strongly opposes the language in the bill preventing the District
from using its own local funds to carry out locally passed
marijuana policies, which…undermines the principles of States’
rights and of District home rule.” Today Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)

said D.C. should be free to set its own marijuana policy. It
will be interesting to see how many Republicans agree with him.

On a related issue, the House last May
approved an amendment aimed at stopping the Drug Enforcement
Administration from undermining state laws allowing medical use of
marijuana. The amendment, which explicitly applied to the District
of Columbia, was introduced by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and
received votes from 49 Republicans as well as 170
Democrats. 

“Voting is a responsibility I take very
seriously…and always feel great about being part of the process.
Everyone complains about government dysfunction but I feel that you
don’t have the right to complain if you don’t do anything about
it!”

Read more from Katie Couric.

If there’s one right that really is inalienable, it’s the right
to complain about government dysfunction (and private-sector
dysfunction, too). Whether you vote or not. I like to vote too and
to (hopefully) influence politics via writing and other activities.
But if you don’t want to do any of that, it sure as hell doesn’t
mean you can’t voice opinions.