Election 2006: Abortion Ban Defeated; Props Too Close to Call; Pelosi, First Female Speaker
By Christine Cupaiuolo — November 8, 2006
The South Dakota abortion ban has gone down in defeat. With 719 of 818 precincts reporting, the vote was 55-45 percent, according to SD election totals.
Search ballot measures for other states here. It’s still too early to tell whether stem cell research passed in Missouri. Proposition 85, the parental notification bill in California, looks like it will be defeated.
More good news:
* Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, who most recently was in the news for gaining access to abortion clinic records (and allegedly sharing those records with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly), lost to Democratic challenger Paul Morrison.
* Claire McCaskill won a hard-fought race in Missouri for U.S. Senate.
* With the Democrats taking hold of the House, the other big news is Nancy Pelosi, who’s on track to be elected the first female House speaker.
“Today the American people voted for change and they voted for Democrats to take our country in a new direction,” Pelosi told supporters Tuesday night. “That’s exactly what we intend to do.”
View video of Pelosi addressing supporters at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in D.C. after Democrats regained the House.
Locally, I’m disappointed by Democrat Tammy Duckworth’s loss in Illinois to Republican Peter Roskam. Despite Duckworth’s hero status, the television campaign ads against Duckworth all but blamed her for the common cold. And in the end, the race didn’t focus as much on the war as you might expect.
What were the highlights/lowlights of your night?
