House Democrats passed a health care reform bill.

The battle between the White House and FOX News lead to Obama’s Communications Director Anita Dunn stepping down much sooner than the end of the year, as she initially said.

Democrats picked up two more Congressional seats in the House, extending their winning streak to five straight special Congressional races over Republican candidates.

I’m not suggesting that the current political momentum is entirely for the Democrats.  Certainly the right has their successes to celebrate as well!

I voted

Ruth Danner beat out her more conservative challenger Stephanie Madsen for District 2 Juneau Assembly by a margin of 400 votes. 1,500 absentees and questioned ballots won’t be counted until Friday.

David Stone won re-election to a third term on the Juneau Assembly, turning back a challenge by Karen Lawfer 64 percent to 36 percent. Stone is more conservative than Lawfer who only won the more liberal downtown precinct, also my voting precinct, but she brought very important issues during the campaign and gave Stone a run for his money.

After polls closed Tuesday, it appeared each incumbent on the Juneau School Board would be re-elected for another term. Until the rest of the ballots are counted on Friday it looks like school board member Andrea “Andi” Story was the leading vote-getter for the three seats up for grabs with 3,216 votes, followed by School Board President Mark Choate and Phyllis Carlson with 3,076 and 2,470 votes, respectively. Bill Peters ended Tuesday evening with 2,109 votes, while Mary Marks finished with 1,541 votes.

Voters’ overwhelmingly approved of Proposition 1 authorizing the city to borrow $11.8 million for the renovations at the 52-year-old Gastineau Elementary School bringing it up to code and completely renovated by the end of summer 2012, when my son is ready for gindergarten. Up to 70 percent of that cost is eligible for reimbursement from the state, leaving local property owners a tax burden of about $12 per $100,000 of assessed value for 10 years.

Voters also approved Proposition 2 increasing the tax on tobacco products, raising packs of cigarettes to $1 from 30 cents and to 45% from 12% on other tobacco products. The increase is estimated to increase city revenue up to $1.7 million a year from just over $500k last year.

Elsewhere in the state, Mat-Su voters rejected their school bond package for school district building renovations. The bond package would have been worth $31.7 million and would have covered roof repairs, new fire alarm systems and new floors and parking lot improvements.

Voters in the Mat-Su valley also rejected a sales tax proposal that would have instituted a 3% sales tax in exchange for a 7.3 mill rate on property tax. Voters in Fairbanks also rejected a sales tax proposal to reduce property taxes. The Fairbanks plan would have increased spending on roads, police and fire protection by $8 million.

Isn’t it interesting that heavily conservative areas like the Mat-Su valley and Fairbanks would turn down additional taxes to repair their schools, reduce property taxes, improve roads and increase Fire & Police protection? For one, the money from property taxes are mainly used for schools. So, let’s keep those high, but not approve additional repairs on our schools? Meanwhile Juneau is getting a fully renovated modern Elementary school. Sweet!

And it also looks like Kodiak is getting a $76 million expansion and renovation for the Kodiak High School thanks to Kodiak voters on Tuesday.