Something for everyone on November ballot

Nevada has a long and distinguished tradition of using its ballot to drive Election Day turnout, and this year looks like it will be no different.

This week, a Carson City judge rejected attempts from various Chambers of Commerce to deny you a chance to vote on an initiative to raise the state's minimum wage to $13 per hour, in increments over the next eight years.

Given that the current minimum wage — either $7.25 per hour or $8.25 per hour, depending upon whether an employer offers health care to workers — was imposed by a ballot initiative, there's a solid chance this initiative may pass, assuming organizers get the 55,000 required signatures to place it on the November ballot. (Since it's a constitutional amendment, it would need to pass again in 2018 to become law.)

But there's another effect of the initiative, as well, one decidedly short-term but potent: This initiative will drive liberal voters to the polls, the people who support Hillary Clinton (whose minimum wage proposal is $12 per hour) or Bernie Sanders (minimum wage proposal: $15 per hour). And in a year when Democrats are trying to take back the state Assembly, the state Senate and win Nevada for a blue candidate, this initiative will certainly help.

It's not the only one, either: Already on the 2016 ballot are initiatives that seem almost tailor-made to appeal to liberal and younger voters.

The Background Check Initiative would require a criminal background check before purchasing a firearm in nearly all cases. It essentially extends the already-required background checks conducted by licensed firearms dealers in gun stores now to private-party gun sales.

This one is a no-brainer: Background checks are constitutional and they work (more than 2 million people who aren't legally allowed to own guns have been stopped from legally purchasing weapons since 1998 after failing a background check). And mass shootings in Paris, Charleston, S.C. and San Bernardino, Calif., will only provide momentum for this idea.

The Initiative to Regulate and Tax Marijuana would add Nevada to the states where recreational marijuana is legal (Colorado, Oregon, Washington state and Alaska, along with Washington, D.C.).

There are plenty of good reasons to approve this measure, too, not least of which is acknowledging the war on drugs has failed to interrupt the supply or use of drugs, and the unconscionable incarceration of nonviolent drug users. Voters should understand, however, that problems will persist even if they approve this measure: the marijuana DUI standard in Nevada is ridiculously low, and efforts to address workplace protections for even medical marijuana users have stalled in the Legislature. And let's not forget that federal authorities can still arrest you for possession or use of marijuana.

Liberals, however, may not be the only ones with reason to turn out to vote in November. A group led by state Controller Ron Knecht is gathering signatures to repeal the commerce tax on business that was passed during the 2015 Legislature. If that measure qualifies, it will surely give conservatives a reason to turn out.

Activist Sharron Angle has a trio of initiatives she's fronting, everything from voter ID to student privacy to repealing a state health insurance exchange. But Angle has enjoyed more publicity than success in recent years.

Finally, don't forget that here in Clark County, fuel tax indexing will be on the ballot as well. A yes vote will continue the practice of indexing, which has increased the gas tax and supplied authorities with the money to complete road work. A no vote would end fuel tax indexing and forego those funds (and the improvements they would purchase).

Come November, there may be something for everybody on the ballot.

— Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and co-host of the show "PoliticsNOW," airing at 5:30 p.m. Sundays on 8NewsNow. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.