The editors of the Wall Street Journal are chortling over the rejection of the “Fair Tax” amendment on which Gov. Pritzker has lavished so much of his own personal funds:

The U.S. electorate Tuesday declined to endorse sweeping progressive change, and that sentiment extended even to deep-blue Illinois. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, supported by liberal luminaries like Sen. Dick Durbin, exhorted voters to pass a referendum that would repeal the state’s 4.95% flat income tax to allow for higher top rates. Voters declined.

Like other progressive defeats across the country, this one was more marked than polling might have suggested. Gov. Pritzker ran on the “fair tax” in 2018 and a March 2020 poll showed 65% support. But the measure was defeated 45% to 55% as a critical mass of Democratic voters broke with the party’s state leadership.

concluding

The strong performance of Senate Republican candidates nationwide also means that a federal bailout aimed at propping up unsustainable state budgets is unlikely. The Democrats at the helm of Illinois’ sinking fiscal ship may be running out of options short of sustainable public-sector reform.

I wish I were as confident as they. It reminds me of the famous wisecrack attributed to Winston Churchill (but actually something like it was said by Abba Eban): the Americans always do the right thing—after all other alternatives have been exhausted. I think that another famous quote is more likely to motivate Illinois’s political leaders, this one said by Nikolay Chernyshevsky: the worse the better. I think they will cling to their profligate ways as though their political lives depended on it because they do.

or What Happened?

I touched on this yesterday but I want to dig into the results of the election a little more deeply. Although it’s still premature I think it’s likely that when the counting is over and the dust of the lawsuits has settled, that VP Biden will have been elected president. It will likely be a very narrow victory but a victory nonetheless.

Meanwhile down-ballot Republicans are likely to hold the Senate and gain seats in the House although I believe they will fall short of taking control of it. In my recollection it is practically unprecedented for an incumbent president to be defeated without his party also being defeated.

There is an explanation for what looks like it has happened that should be considered. Is it possible that voters thought they were voting for the third Obama term? Treating this election as a re-election campaign rather than as a new administration would explain what we’re seeing.

In that interpretation the Trump years are a sort of unexpected and unwelcome interruption, a sort of hiccup in the Obama Administration.

I don’t agree with those who think that Joe Biden will be able to impel a return to the status quo ante. Not only has too much changed over the last four years but the most pressing challenge facing him (other than coping with divided government) will be COVID-19 and, whatever he and other Democratic politicians have been saying, that is beyond our control. Even if a safe, effective vaccine were available tomorrow it would be a year or more before the crisis could be deemed over. Fewer than half of the people get flu shots in any given year. Not only will vaccinating enough of the population be a daunting logistical task—throwing money at it will not be enough—but quite a few people will refuse the vaccine.

No, there will be periodic outbreaks and freakouts by local political leaders for the foreseeable future regardless of what is done by the federal government.

I’ll have more remarks what’s unfolding throughout the day.

As of this writing at 2:00pm CST it looks as though Joe Biden will be elected president, carrying both the Electoral College and the popular vote by razor-thin margins. It’s still too early to tell yet but that’s how it looks. There will be court challenges, recounts, and who knows what stretching out for weeks, maybe even months.

It also looks quite likely that the Republicans will retain their control of the Senate while reducing Democrats lead in the House. Historically, this is a very unusual outcome.

What falls short of my optimal outcome is that I’m already hearing Democratic operatives taking to the airwaves saying yes, the Biden campaign did something wrong, darn it. They didn’t go far enough left. That is cognitive dissonance. Whomever is ultimately elected it’s going to be a long four years.

And, as the late Mayor Daley once put it, no matter what it looks like now somebody will be elected.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal remark:

Either candidate had a path to win by our deadline. But it’s already clear that the biggest early losers are the pollsters. The mainstream media polls all had Mr. Biden winning in a walk with a popular vote margin in the upper single digits. They were off in particular on Florida. The outlier pollsters like the Trafalgar Group, often derided by their colleagues, seem to have better judged the electorate.

Mr. Biden still seems likely to win the popular vote, but the margin will be narrower than predicted and the Electoral College was still up for grabs. Lamenting the Electoral College is a hardy perennial, but both parties know that it’s the measure of victory or defeat. Both campaigns focused on those swing states.

The tight race reminds us that democracy is surprising, and humility is good journalism practice. Especially in this year of Covid-19 and an economic recession, Democrats thought they were set up for a blue wave. But while they looked set to retain a House majority, a Senate Democratic majority was moving out of reach as GOP incumbents held on to win in Iowa and North Carolina.

The primary stumbling block to governance is not how divided the country is but how divided the Congress is. At present the most right-leaning Democrat in the House has views farther to the left than the most left-leaning Republican. That in turn is a product less of differences in the electorate than in our dysfunctional, self-serving political parties.

The coming reapportionment will further muddle things. Although states like North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida are purpling, the bluest states are going to lose districts. Sadly, not enough people are taking the underlying message seriously: the governing strategy of states like California, New York, and Illinois is deeply flawed. It’s not just the climate; California has a nice climate, too.

So now we wait. There has been no Biden landslide, no repudiation of Trump. But neither have there been enough “shy Trump voters” or mischievous ones as Scott Adams has suggested to make Trump a clear winner. As of this writing the presidential election, the status of the Senate, and the status of the House are all open questions. Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada have yet to be called one way or another and it could potentially be weeks before they are. Pretty 19th century.

The courts may decide the election.

What all of this tells us is that there really is a national difference of opinion and as Plato pointed out a couple of millennia ago we need to be able to compromise. I see no basis for compromise which does not portend well for the future.

Amending the Illinois state constitution to allow the legislature to impose a graduated income tax has been a keystone of Gov. Pritzker’s policy plans since his election. It was on the ballot yesterday and requires, somewhat confusingly, either approval by 60% of those voting on the amendment or 50%+1 of those voting. It failed to get reach either yesterday and, consequently, today its fate is unknown and will remain so for weeks. The Chicago Tribune reports:

Illinois voters on Tuesday got their say on a far-reaching ballot question about the future of the state income tax following millions of dollars in TV ads bankrolled by battling billionaires Gov. J.B. Pritzker and hedge fund owner Ken Griffin.

More than $124 million was raised by groups for and against a proposed change to the Illinois Constitution that would switch the state from a flat-rate income tax to a graduated-rate system in which taxes would increase as income rises.

After all that, the fate of the “yes or no” referendum might remain unknown for days or weeks as late-arriving mail-in votes continue to be counted. That’s because there are two ways the proposal can pass: It needs either 60% support among those voting directly on the question or more than 50% support of those voting in the election.

As for the first pathway, the amendment was falling far short of the 60% benchmark. The question had 45.9% support among those voting directly on the amendment. Another 54% voted against the question with nearly three-quarters of the state’s precincts reporting. All totals are unofficial.

The anti-amendment Coalition to Stop the Proposed Tax Hike Amendment said it believed the proposal had been defeated.

“When all the votes are counted, we believe there will be more ‘no’ votes than ‘yes’ votes, and that will be a win for small business owners, middle-class families, family farmers, retirees, and large employers,” group spokeswoman Lissa Druss said in a statement. She said such a defeat would send “a resounding message” from voters that they “cannot trust Springfield politicians with another tax hike.”

The Pritzker-backed pro-amendment group was withholding judgment on the outcome, however.

“Until every ballot is counted, we will stand with the Illinoisans who cast a ballot by mail, early and in-person today to ensure their voices are heard,” said Quentin Fulks, who chairs Vote Yes for Fairness.

Under the second pathway, it could take up to two weeks for a result to become clear. That’s because the calculation relies on the total number of ballots cast, and Illinois law allows mail-in ballots to be counted until Nov. 17 if they were postmarked by Election Day.

Should the amendment fail the governor has threatened a number of consequences including steep increases in other taxes or a 15% cut in state services. There are many things he hasn’t considered, e.g. pay cuts for state employees or amending the constitution to allow the legislature to reduce public employee pensions.

The governor and the legislature have been kicking this can down the road for decades. We may have reached the end of the road.

The graduated income tax has been promoted by the governor as compelling billionaires and millionaires to pay their fair share, hence the somewhat confusing “Fair Tax”. In my view the shortcoming of the strategy is that the state has no practical way of forcing the 17 billionaires and quarter million millionaires who live in the state to remain here and, indeed, they’ve been leaving in droves over the last few years. That would impel the legislature to depend on people who are aren’t millionaires for the desired revenue and that, indeed, has been the observation of those opposing the “Fair Tax” amendmewnt. IMO the governor and legislature have been feckless in not “sweetening” the proposed amendment by adding protections, economization measures, and other provisions to reach a compromise with those who oppose the amendment.

We’re left wondering “Now what?”

Update

The Chicago Tribune reports that the group supporting Gov. Pritzker’s “Fair Tax” amendment has conceded defeat:

The group backed by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker to pitch his proposal to enact a graduated state income tax in Illinois acknowledged the constitutional amendment’s defeat Wednesday and warned of a financial morass as a result of the rejection of the proposed constitutional amendment.

“We are undoubtedly disappointed with this result but are proud of the millions of Illinoisans who cast their ballots in support of tax fairness in this election,” said Quentin Fulks, chair of the Pritzker-funded Vote Yes for Fairness group.

“Now lawmakers must address a multi-billion dollar budget gap without the ability to ask the wealthy to pay their fair share. Fair Tax opponents must answer for whatever comes next,” Fulks said, pointing the finger at “Republican legislators and their billionaire allies” who opposed it.

They’re pointing their fingers in the wrong direction. As another famous Illinoisan once put it, you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. The governor and legislators have been urging people to trust them without giving them actual reasons other than the “D” behind their names to trust them. Experience has told the voters that our governor and legislators are not to be trusted.

What do you think the odds are that by the end of the evening both President Trump and VP Biden will have declared victory?

This and this suggest to me that the odds approach 100%.

At Pat Lang’s place co-blogger Robert Willman has a length exposition on the U. S. electoral system, the Electoral College, and the various lawsuits that may have the Supreme Court effectively deciding the outcome of the 2020 election:

Twenty years ago in the presidential election, a close vote in Florida caused a recount to happen, and led to lawsuits in state and federal courts about the recount. In the midst of the spectacle, actual legitimate discussion was heard on television and in the media about the process and the Electoral College. The Supreme Court eventually short-circuited the state proceedings and essentially made George W. Bush the winner, when Al Gore, the nominee of the Democratic Party, decided not to challenge the situation in the Electoral College and Congress [1]. But in today’s propagandized and polarized election cycle, court action has already started.

Three times in the last seven days, the Supreme Court has ruled on requests about lawsuits. The court did not agree to hear and decide the cases. Instead, it was ruling on two requests about whether a lower court order would remain in effect until an appeal was concluded, and whether to shorten its usual timetable for deciding if a case will be accepted to be heard.

The cases come out of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. They deal with who gets to decide what the election procedures will be, which is supposed to be the state legislatures, with a possible backup by Congress. This general principle comes from Article 1, section 4, clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution–…

I would have no problem with the abolition of the Electoral College under a couple of conditions. The first is that the primary system should be abolished, banned in fact. The second is that winning could only be by a majority of the votes cast in the general election. Not a plurality. If necessary, hold a run-off election between the two highest vote-getters. Or among the vote-getters reaching a certain threshold.

Otherwise far from being more democratic an election decided simply by popular vote could actually be less democratic than under the present system. Consider it this way. About 28% of eligible voters participated in the primaries in 2016. A candidate picked by 51% of 28% is democratic? In what universe and under what definition of “democracy”?

In his latest Wall Street Journal column Walter Russell Mead counsels that the world is watching the results of the American elections:

The world’s love-hate relationship with the U.S. is about more than military might and policy ideas. For all the talk about decline and the supposed collapse of American soft power, the U.S. remains the unrivaled diva on the global stage—the most arresting figure, if not always the most sympathetic one, whose antics keep all transfixed.

America is the world’s biggest billboard. Nothing that happens here stays here; everything spreads. If Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality spring up in Minnesota, protesters in Lagos, Nigeria, take note. If U.S. rioters start demolishing Confederate memorials, statues of slave traders go into the river in Britain. And if Americans elect a nationalist populist to the presidency, his rhetoric and his ideas will be repeated and sometimes distorted out to the farthest ends of the earth. For good or for bad, the U.S. matters.

America is an experiment in self-governance. The U.S. is a “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” as Lincoln put it. No aristocracy, no cultural or technocratic elite, no religious hierarchy ever quite manages to govern Americans. (Though many have tried, and some are still trying.) And no smooth-tongued demagogue has ever persuaded us to dismantle the constitutional fences that protect our inherited institutions.

Some well-meaning Americans think that our many flaws undermine the power of our example to the world. That is not the whole story. For admirers of liberty around the world, the example of our democracy is all the more compelling because the faults of U.S. society are out in plain view. The history of American democracy is not a story of sages and philosopher kings. The U.S. story is rich with examples of racism, political corruption, hypocrisy and crass materialism. America has left undone things it ought to have done and done things it ought not to have done. Its critics have never lacked for material.

U.S. history is not a tale of preternaturally virtuous people overcoming temptations that lesser nations cannot resist. If it were, the American example would not be contagious. But if boobs like us can make democracy work, then there is a chance for people to make it work anywhere.

That’s hopeful in its way. From where I sit in Chicago, Illinois what we have is government of the people, by the public employees, for the public employees and this election is about cementing that hold even tighter.

Sadly, if the world is, indeed, watching us it is watching us through a keyhole and the keyhole is owned by a narrow segment of the society—journalists, television and movie writers and producers, college professors, and politicians aligned with the above—who themselves don’t know a lot about the United States. My experience is that progressives do love America but their love is of a peculiar kind. They love it for what it might become rather than for what it is or has been which in fact they may hate. Try that out on your spouse, your family, your friends, and your employer and I believe you’ll see the contours of my concern.

That, I should mention, is my concern about the eventuality of Kamala Harris becoming president. Neither of her parents are Americans, she largely grew up in Canada, and she has spent her adult life in the hothouse environment of Northern California. I doubt she’s ever visited Bakersfield let alone Lubbock. I don’t think she knows anything about the United States other than the views of those in her echo chamber.