Daily Brew: September 21, 2018

September 21, 2018

Today's Brew tests your knowledge of medical marijuana ballot measures and brings you an update on Ballotpedia's front page   Welcome to the Friday, September 21 Brew. Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day: QUIZ: Test your ballot measure knowledge! Missouri Court of Appeals allows Amendment 1 to appear on the ballot, pending ruling Why I’m excited about Ballotpedia’s front page #FridayFact How many ballot measures have there been related to legalizing or decriminalizing recreational or medical marijuana since 2008? (Including the ones we discussed here yesterday that are certified for the Nov. 2018 ballot) A.  25 → B.  33 → C.  37 → D.  48 → Missouri Court of Appeals allows Amendment 1 to appear on the ballot, pending ruling The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, on Tuesday stayed a lower court’s ruling from September 14 that removed Amendment 1 from the general election ballot. Amendment 1 would make changes to the state's lobbying laws, campaign finance limits for state legislative candidates, and legislative redistricting process. Previously, on September 14, Judge Daniel Green of the Cole County Circuit Court ruled that Amendment 1 violated the state’s single-subject rule. While Clean Missouri, the campaign behind Amendment 1, said the measure addressed the single issue of ethics, Judge Green said the measure addressed the two issues of ethics and the state legislature. Clean Missouri appealed the ruling to the Missouri Court of Appeals. The appeals court stayed Judge Green’s decision, pending its own ruling. The Court heard the full case yesterday. Stay tuned and we will update you on the final ruling when it comes down. No matter how the Court of Appeals rules, the case is expected to be appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, as both sides of the lawsuit have stated. If it agrees to take up the case, the state Supreme Court would make the final judgment on whether Amendment 1 violates the state constitution’s single-subject requirement or not. Learn more The new features I’m excited about on our front page Many readers arrive on Ballotpedia following a quick search engine query about a particular person, policy, or election. We think of it as coming through the side entrance to the store. But the front page is like the front entrance, and we are regularly working on ways to make that more delightful for our readers. We want you to know you can come to our main page for a refreshing, level-headed voice in the room. I am excited to bring your attention to a few new features we launched yesterday. Trending articles: We are using our internal page statistics server to clue you into what information other readers like you are reading. As I’m typing this, California’s Prop 10 (the Rent Control Initiative we discussed in a Brew earlier this week) and the Massachusetts Question 1 Initiative (the Nurse-Patient Assignment Limits Initiative) are the top two trending articles. It’s just fun to see how this changes throughout the day. Now you can learn more about what other Ballotpedia readers like yourself are reading. Latest edition of Ballotpedia’s Newsletters: It’s no secret. I love our newsletters here at Ballotpedia. But I don’t always have time to read through each edition that my co-workers write. So sometimes I’ll clear out my inbox and won’t have a chance to read this month’s Ballot Bulletin or today’s Number of the Day, so we wanted an easy way for all of us to be able to click right into the latest newsletters. A quick way to get to your sample ballot: November is creeping up, so we know we need to make our Sample Ballot Lookup tool as easy to find as possible. All you have to do now is type in your address right under our main stories and you’ll find out what you need to know for November. I’m always looking for ways to make our front page more engaging. Email me your suggestions and let me know what you think of our updates! Explore the front page→