President Bush and Congress just agreed to borrow $700 billion to bailout insolvent financial firms. Your share in this wager is $2,292.60. For a family of four that comes to $9,170.40

And you didn’t get to vote on it.

If you’re unhappy about that, you get to choose from two major party candidates for president who both voted for the bailout. (All the minor party and independent candidates, both left and right, were against the bailout.)

Compare our federal dysfunction to the menu of real choices awaiting voters at the state and local level — especially in the 24 states that enjoy a process of initiative and referendum.

Here’s my list of the Top 10 issues on state ballots this November:

  10. Washington State I-985, The Reduce Traffic Congestion Initiative. The Seattle area is home to some the nation’s most horrendous traffic. This initiative promises to kick out those jams by requiring synchronized traffic lights, opening up high-occupancy-vehicle lanes and mandating a higher proportion of current funds be spent to reduce road congestion.

The measure is promoted by the state’s leading initiative activist, Tim Eyman, who has passed eight initiatives in the last ten years — to enact tax cuts, spending restraints and produce performance audits of government. I-985 is ahead in early polling. If it passes and succeeds in easing gridlock, frustrated commuters in other initiative states will want to travel this same route.

  9. Colorado Amendment 46, Civil Rights Initiative. Ward Connerly’s efforts to end racial and gender preferences — so-called “affirmative action” programs — have been fiercely fought. Yet, the measures have won in every state where voters have gotten to choose: California, Michigan and Washington. Though campaigns of harassment against petitioners in Arizona, Missouri and Oklahoma helped block the idea from gaining a spot on those state ballots, the issue will be voted on in Colorado and Nebraska. It is expected to pass in both states.

  8. California Proposition 4, Abortion Waiting Period and Parental Notification. Prop 4 requires a minor to wait 48 hours after a physician notifies a parent – or in the case of alleged parental abuse, an adult relative – before an abortion can be performed. Similar measures in 2005 and 2006 failed, but those initiatives lacked the alternative of notifying a relative rather than a parent. The third time may be a charm — a recent Field Poll shows the measure narrowly ahead.

Abortion is also at issue in Colorado, with Amendment 48, which defines “personhood” as beginning at “the moment of fertilization,” and in South Dakota, with Initiated Measure 11, a ban on all abortions, except in the case of rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s life.

  7. Massachusetts Ballot Question 2, The Sensible Marijuana Policy Initiative. This measure would make the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana a civil offense, punishable by a $100 fine, rather than a criminal offense. In an interesting twist, it appears that 11 district attorneys broke Massachusetts campaign finance laws by spending money against this measure before forming their Coalition to Save Our Streets. Campaign finance laws are so byzantine that even the DAs can’t follow them.

Michigan voters will decide Proposal 1, a measure to permit the medicinal use of marijuana, and Californians face Prop 5, the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act, which would move the state even further toward a policy of treatment, rather than incarceration, for drug offenses.

  6. Arkansas Proposed Initiated Act 1, Unmarried Couple Adoption Ban. This statutory measure bans unmarried couples from adopting children or serving as foster parents. State government policy had restricted same-sex couples from becoming adoptive or foster parents, until the policy was challenged by the ACLU and overturned. This initiative would set a broader state policy whereby no unmarried couples – heterosexual or homosexual – could adopt children or be foster parents.

If it passes, it is likely to be repeated in other states. If it fails, along with likely failures of same-sex marriage bans in California and elsewhere, sexual orientation politics may begin a new chapter.

Arizona’s Proposition 102 currently leads in the polls, but is relatively close. It’s similar to Proposition 107, which in 2006 became the first same-sex marriage ban to be defeated by voters in any state. But Proposition 102, unlike its predecessor, doesn’t prohibit domestic partnerships or civil unions. Marriage amendments also face tough tests in California, where Prop 8 is far behind, in part due to a controversial ballot title by Attorney General Jerry Brown, and in Florida, where Amendment 2 is polling well over a majority but short of the 60 percent super-majority now required for enacting state amendments.

  5. Colorado Amendment 47, Right to Work. This amendment would allow any employee in a unionized Colorado workplace to freely choose whether or not to join the union. It is now being opposed by a united big business/labor coalition with a campaign war-chest of nearly $15 million, after a long negotiated deal whereby business interests agreed to help fund the campaign against this measure in exchange for organized labor withdrawing four initiatives (Amendments 53, 55, 56, and 57) that would have tilted policy toward labor.

The business/labor coalition is also opposing Amendment 49, which stops state and local government from deducting union dues from employees’ paychecks, and Amendment 54, which prevents recipients of government no-bid contracts (totaling $100,000 or more) from making political contributions.

Colorado was poised for a fierce battle between business and labor interests until last week’s agreement. Now, these three measures face a multi-million dollar onslaught from the state’s most powerful political players.

  4. North Dakota Measure 2, A Corporate and Personal Income Tax Cut. Proposed by the North Dakota chapter of Americans for Prosperity, this statutory initiative would reduce state income tax for individuals by 50 percent and the corporate income tax by 15 percent. Former Governor Ed Schafer has endorsed the initiative, while the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and the North Dakota Farm Bureau oppose it.

A different tax battle rages next door, where the Minnesota Sales Tax Amendment, referred to the ballot by legislators, would raise the sales tax rate by 3/8ths of a cent to fund natural resource protection and cultural heritage programs. The Taxpayers League of Minnesota is leading the opposition, along with the state Chamber of Commerce and Farm Bureau. Continued...