Ballot measures show that common sense lives

OPINION:

In case you think the country went mad based on the results of the midterm elections, think again.

The outcome of ballot measures across the country showed that common sense endures.

Voters in traditionally blue Washington state and Colorado joined Nebraska and Arizona in voting to keep biological males from competing in women’s sports.

The evidence is in: A male’s strength and speed give him an undeniable advantage. It is outrageously unfair to force women who have trained for years to compete against larger, faster and stronger men.

Colorado voted to protect children from sterilizing drugs and mutilating surgery. That the Democratic Party clings to the myth of transgenderism does not bode well for its future.

Voter ID laws, favored overwhelmingly by the public but bitterly opposed by Democrats, passed in Ohio, North Carolina and Nevada. Measures requiring proof of citizenship to vote passed by wide margins in West Virginia, South Dakota, Arkansas and Kansas.

Voters rejected the argument that this was intended to suppress minority voting. Proponents asked: If you need an ID to buy alcohol, board a plane or enter a courthouse, why not vote? In New Jersey, revelations earlier this year that noncitizens were mistakenly added to voter rolls through a state system error bolstered the case.

In Alabama, public school students will be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance daily, and student-led prayer will be allowed. The measure was approved by 63% of voters.

The most widely watched referendum in the country was California’s Proposition 40, the so-called billionaire wealth tax. With 60% of the votes counted, the measure was losing, with 55.6% voting against it.

Proposition 40 would have levied a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of the state’s estimated 200 billionaires. It would have targeted all their wealth, not just annual earnings, but accumulated wealth from investments, business holdings and personal property.

Proponents claimed it would generate an estimated $100 billion for healthcare, food assistance and education. Opponents argued that it would drive the wealthy out of California and that the state would lose not just their annual income taxes but also the jobs provided by the businesses they would take with them.

At least seven well-known billionaires left the state in anticipation of the measure’s passage, but they need not have worried. Even in a state known for its utopian thinking, voters saw through this latest gouge-the-rich scheme.

Although the overall results of the elections were disappointing, common sense prevailed on ballot measures from West Virginia to California.