EDUCATION REFERENDUM: Watching local school referenda around the country -- and the hostility to any new spending even on education, the most popular government program -- suggests a political shift that may work against Democrats and against efforts all over the country to repair infrastructure. Here's a story that caught my eye: residents in Newton, Mass., a generally liberal Boston suburb, are seeking to place a referendum on the ballot to reverse the funding of a new school there.

IMPOUNDING MILE HIGH CARS: The Denver city council takes a step towards referring to voters a measure that would require police to impound the cars of unlicensed drivers. The measure is aimed at unauthorized immigrants. 

BIG GREEN REDUX: At Huffington Post, the environmentalist authors Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus see danger for Democrats on the issue of oil prices and global warming. To make their point, they tell the story of "Big Green," a notoriously unsuccessful California ballot initiative that failed in 1990. Big Green was overly ambitious and easily defeated, as they point out. But it also was part of an effort by John van de Kamp to use ballot initiatives to get himself elected governor. The strategy didn't work, either for van de Kamp or the initiaitves he championed.

CLEANING UP CLEAN WATER: Backers of an Alaska ballot initiative to limit what the Last Frontier's metal mines can dump in the water want to withdraw the measure. They say they want to focus on an alternative measure.

OLD FOLKS HEART HEALTHY KIDS: The Montana ballot initiative to expand chlidren's health care coverage picks up a key endorsement, from the AARP.