On election night, unions won key ballot measure battles, Matthew Cunningham-Cook reports for the Nation:

• California voters approved Prop 30, a measure to raise $6 billion for education. The passage of Prop 30 is a repudiation of Prop 13, the notorious 1978 ballot measure that starved the California school system for decades.
• Californians rejected Prop 32, which would have limited the ability of unions to participate in politics.
• Idaho voters rejected a series of ballot measures that would have eliminated teacher tenure, established “merit pay,” and required all Idaho secondary students to take two for-profit online courses in order to graduate.
• In Oregon, unions mobilized to help defeat a ballot measure that would have eliminated the inheritance tax.
• Alabamians defeated a proposed constitutional amendment that could have eliminated the state’s guarantee of a free public education for all students.

[Photo credit: quinn.anya, Creative Commons.