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Sunday Poll: Should Missouri Wait & See Before Considering Legalizing Recreational Use of Marijuana?

February 2, 2020 Drug Policy, Featured, Missouri, Politics/Policy, Sunday Poll Comments Off on Sunday Poll: Should Missouri Wait & See Before Considering Legalizing Recreational Use of Marijuana?
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The group that backed the successful medical marijuana constitutional amendment in 2018 is looking for a repeat in November 2020. New Approach Missouri plans to gather signatures to place a measure on the November 2020 ballot for legalization  of marijuana for recreational use.

New Approach’s petition would legalize adult use of marijuana for those 21 or older.

The state would tax sales at 15%, with the proceeds going to veterans, highways and drug addiction treatment.

People with marijuana convictions would also be able to apply for sentence reductions and conviction expungement. The petition would require local voter approval to ban dispensaries.

Fiscal analyses of the proposal estimate the program would generate between $93 million and $155 million for state coffers annually.

Running the program would cost the state $21 million initially and then $6 million a year. (Post-Dispatch)

Though the state has awarded licenses for medical marijuana businesses, actual sales won’t begin until the summer.

Today’s poll assumes they gather the required signatures in time.

This poll will close at 8pm tonight.

— Steve Patterson

 

Sunday Poll: Do You Plan To Vote In The Presidential Primary?

January 26, 2020 Featured, Politics/Policy, Sunday Poll Comments Off on Sunday Poll: Do You Plan To Vote In The Presidential Primary?
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Right now it’s hard to ignore Missouri’s neighbor to the north, Iowa. The Iowa Caucuses are the first in the nation to begin nominating presidential candidates.

The Iowa caucus campaigns are closing in on their final days. Whether you’ll be a first-time caucus participant or you’ve been participating for decades, now’s the time to put your knowledge to the test.

The caucuses gained national notoriety after helping catapult Jimmy Carter to the White House in 1976. This cycle has brought dozens of candidates to the state to win over Iowans. (Des Moines Register)

The Iowa Caucuses will take place on Monday February 3, 2020.  Interestingly, due to a rule change, more than one candidate could claim victory. New Hampshire is next, with a traditional primary, on Tuesday February 11, 2020.

Though President Trump is being nominally challenged for the GOP nomination in most states, this primary season will focus on the still-large field of Democratic candidates. Their focus will soon turn to other states, including Missouri & Illinois.

  • Monday 2/3/2020: Iowa caucus
  • Tuesday 2/11/2020: New Hampshire primary
  • Saturday 2/22/2020: Nevada caucus
  • Saturday 2/29/2020: South Carolina primary
  • Tuesday 3/3/2020: Super Tuesday with 14 states, American Samoa, and Democrats Abroad
  • Tuesday 3/10/2020: Missouri, 4 other states, and Washington D. C.
  • Thursday 3/12/2020: Virgin Island caucus
  • Tuesday 3/17/2020: Illinois plus three other states.

This continues into early June, see the 270towin primary calendar page here.

The winner(s) of the Iowa caucus will get a bump in polls and media attention, but that’s no guarantee of a victory in November.

Only three politicians have won a contested Iowa caucus and become president — Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. (Business Insider)

Which brings us to today’s poll:

This poll will close at 8pm tonight.

— Steve Patterson

 

Sunday Poll: Should St. Louis Police Continue To Be Required To Live In The City?

January 19, 2020 Featured, Sunday Poll Comments Off on Sunday Poll: Should St. Louis Police Continue To Be Required To Live In The City?
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For the nearly 30 years I’ve lived in St. Louis all city employees must live within the city’s limits. This has included members of our police department.

This may change — for the police only.

“Right now, we have a clean bill,” Hicks said in a committee hearing on the proposal on Tuesday. “We have a good path through the House; we have a good path through the Senate right to the governor’s desk. He himself told me he’ll sign the bill if we can get it there the way it is written.”

Currently, St. Louis police officers must live inside city limits for at least seven years. This legislation would allow officers to live anywhere that is within a one-hour response time to their precinct.

Mayor Lyda Krewson and Police Chief John Hayden would like to see the requirements changed. They both believe this will help with retention and recruitment problems the city is experiencing. (St. Louis Public Radio)

Police residency is the subject of today’s poll.

This poll will close at 8pm tonight.

— Steve Patterson

 

Sunday Poll: Was the Airport Privatization Process Ended Too Soon?

January 12, 2020 Featured, Politics/Policy, Sunday Poll Comments Off on Sunday Poll: Was the Airport Privatization Process Ended Too Soon?
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Last month St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson said the effort to privatize St. Louis Lambert International Airport was over.

Krewson’s surprise decision followed almost three years of controversy over the possibility of farming out all operations of the airport, which is owned by the city, to private managers. Proponents said such a deal could pay the city hundreds of millions of dollars. Opponents said the city was selling out to private interests, and doing it behind closed doors.

Friday’s announcement brought quick accolades and criticism. Comptroller Darlene Green, a long-standing opponent of privatization, said the airport is well managed and the mayor did the right thing. (Post-Dispatch)

On Friday Lewis Reed, President of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, spoke up.

Reed, in his first public comment on Krewson’s Dec. 20 announcement declaring privatization dead, said that the city first should have sought, received and reviewed bids from some of the teams of companies competing for a privatization deal.

“I don’t think we had any information to make a clear and final decision,” Reed said in an interview. “It would have been good to at least see what the proposals looked like. We would have gotten good information from that, whether we moved forward or not.”

Krewson, in abruptly ending the city’s exploration of privatizing Lambert, had cited criticism from residents, business leaders and other elected officials. (Post-Dispatch)

This is the subject of today’s poll:

This poll will close at 8pm tonight.

— Steve Patterson

 

Sunday Poll: Should The Feds Allow Illinois & Other States Opt Out Of Changing Clocks Twice Per Year?

January 5, 2020 Featured, Politics/Policy, Sunday Poll Comments Off on Sunday Poll: Should The Feds Allow Illinois & Other States Opt Out Of Changing Clocks Twice Per Year?
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Daylight Saving Time will start again on Sunday March 8, 2020 — giving us an extra hour of daylight in the evenings. It’ll end on Sunday November 1, 2020. Nearly 8 months of the year, with the rest being standard time. Now Illinois is considering a major change from neighboring states like Missouri.

The idea of having Missouri and Illinois in different time zones is circulating after the Illinois Senate approved legislation earlier this year that would make daylight saving time the standard in Illinois.

Although the proposal still needs approval in the Illinois House, as well as the signature of the governor and an OK from the federal government, it has residents and business owners on both sides of the Mississippi River thinking how it might affect their lives. (Post-Dispatch)

The Illinois Senate passed bill 533 last month, it was introduced by state Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill.

Originally enacted as an energy-saving measure during World War I, daylight saving time reached its 100-year anniversary in 2018. While initially reserved as a local decision, the practice became law nationwide when U.S. Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966.

As such, states that approve proposals to end the clock change must first get approval from the federal government before they take effect, according to Manar. “The only two ways that it can change in Illinois, ultimately, even with this bill becoming law, is either Congress gives us an exemption as a state or Congress implements a uniform standard presumably different than what we have nationwide,” Manar said, according to the Illinois Radio Network. (Illinois Policy)

Today’s poll is about the federal government and states wishing to make changes to DST in their states.

This poll will close at 8pm tonight.
— Steve Patterson

 

 

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