Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna is a news assistant at Politico Magazine.

As we head into the midterms, it seems like our full attention is focused on which party will win control of the House and Senate. But let’s not overlook some of the other issues on state ballots this year—from minimum wage increases in Arkansas and Missouri to recreational marijuana legalization in Michigan and North Dakota.

Statewide initiatives are the closest thing we have in the United States to direct democracy, but they’re also one of the biggest targets of influence spending. Billionaire Democrat and environmental advocate Tom Steyer has poured millions into campaigns to increase the renewable energy mandates in Arizona and Nevada, for example, while opposition to California’s Proposition 8, which would cap revenue at the state’s dialysis clinics, hit a ballot initiative fundraising record of $111 million.


In total, there are 155 initiatives across 37 states on the ballot on Tuesday. Here are five of the most interesting ones:

A step toward state bans on abortion

In Alabama and West Virginia, voters will have the chance to amend their respective state constitutions to restrict abortion rights. West Virginia’s proposition would explicitly not protect the right to abortion or state funding of the procedure, while Alabama’s proposition would go one step further by giving rights to fetuses, or, as the proposition states, “unborn children.”

Many believe there’s an explicit strategy here. With the recent confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, anti-abortion advocates are looking forward to the possibility that the court will overturn Roe v. Wade. While these ballot initiatives can’t legally ban abortion while Roe stands, they will, if approved, pave the way for Alabama and West Virginia to constitutionally do so should Roe be overturned. “They’re setting the stage for if and when Roe falls,” West Virginia abortion rights activist Margaret Chapman Pomponio told Politico this summer. Meanwhile, Oregon voters will also decide whether to prohibit the use of public funds (such as for Medicaid recipients or public employees) for abortions, though recent polling suggests that initiative will fail. There are no polls for Alabama or West Virginia’s ballot initiatives.

The first state carbon tax

Washington could become the first state in the nation to adopt a price on carbon dioxide emissions as the state’s voters decide the fate of Initiative Measure No. 1631 (I-1631). The battle over I-1631 has shown just how difficult it is to gain broad support for carbon pricing policy. Two years ago, Washington voters turned down a similar ballot initiative. That 2016 measure, I-732, was designed to be a “revenue neutral” tax—meaning, funds received would be returned via tax cuts to those hit hardest by the new tax—in an attempt to gain bipartisan support. But only 1 in 5 Republicans ended up supporting the measure, while it also lost the support of groups like the Sierra Club and others on the left for not doing enough to help poor people and promote clean energy, and it ultimately failed.

This time, I-1631 has been proposed as a “fee” rather than a “tax” that would start at $15 per ton of carbon dioxide in 2020 and increase by $2 per year (plus inflation) until 2035. Should it go into effect, its revenue would be specifically dedicated to environmental and clean energy projects. Though the opposing sides on I-1631 have fallen along more traditionally partisan lines—Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg have each contributed $1 million in support while BP and Koch Industries have donated millions in opposition—recent polling in the state shows it to be on course to pass. If it does, it won’t make much of a dent in the global climate crisis on its own, but it will be a monumental step forward in state-level action at a time when the president has made it clear that climate change is not a federal policy priority.

A plan to expand rent control

In California, voters will decide whether to repeal a state law that prevents local governments from imposing many forms of rent control. California has an acute housing affordability crisis, and proponents of Proposition 10 see expanding rent control as a potential solution to that problem. But opponents say that there’s no guarantee more rent control would solve the state’s housing woes, and that it could even worsen the problem by disincentivizing the building of new units.

But the issue isn’t partisan. A legislative attempt to do the same thing as this measure failed earlier this year in Sacramento, despite California’s Democratic supermajority, and now the proposition has divided the state’s top Democrats: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti supports it, while Lt. Governor and likely soon-to-be-Governor Gavin Newsom warns that it could have “unintended consequences on housing production that could be profoundly problematic.”

The opposition spending, unsurprisingly, is mostly rooted in a worried renting industry. A landowners association described the proposition as an “existential threat.” And recent polling suggests the outcome may go their way, with 60 percent of likely voters saying they will vote against.

Letting felons vote again

Florida is one of four states (along with Iowa, Kentucky and Virginia) in which people with felony convictions are disenfranchised—even after the completion of their sentences—unless they apply directly to the governor to have their voting rights restored. In Florida, however, that could be about to change. With Amendment 4 on the ballot on Tuesday, voters in the Sunshine State could opt to automatically restore the voting rights of people with prior felony convictions (except those convicted of murder or felony sexual offense) who have completed their sentences. That would mean about 1.5 million new voters, expanding Florida’s current voting population by 10 percent. The latest polls show upward of 70 percent of the state’s likely voters support this amendment.

The 10 Commandments

It was almost exactly 15 years ago when Roy Moore was removed from the bench as chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court for defying a federal court order to remove a 5,280-pound granite monument of the Ten Commandments that he had installed in the state’s judicial building. The federal judges who ordered Moore to remove the monument found that it violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits government from favoring any religion over another.

Now, Alabama voters will decide whether to amend the state’s constitution to allow specifically the Ten Commandments to be displayed on government property, including public schools and courthouses. Even if the amendment passes, though there hasn’t been any polling on the initiative, it would likely be challenged in federal court. But proponents told the New York Times in September they look forward to that possibility, hoping that a majority conservative Supreme Court might rule in favor of such religious demonstrations.