Last fall, Arkansas voters approved an initiative that would ban adoption by unmarried couples. The targets of the measure are gay couples. This week, opponents of the initiative filed suit to overturn it, on the grounds that it violates federal and state constitutional guarantees of equal treatment and due process. It appears to be a well-constructed case. Among the plaintiffs are a married, heterosexual couple. Their complaint is that the initiative statute infringes on their own rights. How? In their will, they would leave custody of their own children to a cousin, who is gay and lives with her partner.

Another bit of good news for the legal challenge. The case has been assigned to a judge who struck down a previous effort to remove gay couples from the state's foster care program. A few more details from a local newspaper story are here.

The New York Times seems to think so. In this piece, the Times says that an Arkansas initiative to ban adoption by unmarried couples (a measure clearly targeted at gays) passed because white Arkansas Democrats didn't like Obama and stayed home, thus hurting the measure. The evidence of that is hardly clear. Turnout appears to have been down among white Democrats, but it's far from clear that such Democrats who stayed at home would have opposed the ban. It's common to link the results of candidate races to the results of initiative elections, but the correlation is not strong. In California, some are blaming the victory of Prop 8 on socially conservative African Americans who turned out for Obama but also supported a ban on same-sex marriage. Maybe. But the margin in that race is such -- and the percentage of black voters is small enough -- that the gay marriage ban might well have succeeded in spite of any turnout effect. The margin in Arkansas was even wider on the adoption measure.

A few weeks ago I traveled to Arkansas, where I had an opportunity to learn more about the state's early education system and meet some of the people who play a critical role in implementing, overseeing, and supporting pre-k programs in Arkansas. Arkansas has a high-quality pre-k program that is producing positive results for children, and the state agencies that operate the program have also done important work to align standards and expectations in pre-k across different types of pre-k providers and with the public kindergarten programs children attend after pre-k. Here are a few lessons from Arkansas' experience:

I'm traveling to Arkansas today, where I'm going to be learning more about the state's excellent pre-k system and also speaking at the University of Arkansas. Arkansas is kind of a sleeper state on early education issues: It doesn't get a ton of national attention, but it's got some really good stuff going on and is a national leader in a number of ways. 

First, Arkansas' state pre-k programs, Arkansas Better Chance and Arkansas Better Chance for School Success (ABC), have some of the strongest quality standards in the country. A recent study that observed the quality of teacher-student interactions and environmental factors in ABC classrooms found that 70 percent of ABC classrooms are of "good to excellent" quality--a finding that compares very favorably to research on pre-k classroom quality in other states and nationally. ABC programs also meet 9 out of 10 program quality standards identified by the National Institute for Early Education Research for state pre-k programs. The only reason the states doesn't get a full 10 is that it allows some pre-k teachers in multi-classroom sites to work without a bachelor's degree (but a lead teacher at each multi-classroom site must have a bachelor's degree, and 94 percent of all ABC teachers have a bachelor's degree), and the state is taking steps to ensure all teachers have a bachelor's degree in the near future.

This is why the rule of thumb is that you need to get nearly twice the required number of valid signatures to make sure your measure is on the ballot. Sponsors of an Arkansas initiative to prevent gays from adopting or serving as foster parents collected a little bit more than 61,000 signatures required. But a good validity rate in signature gathering is 70 percent, so it's highly likely they don't have enough signatures to qualify. The Associated Press reports that the initiative's backers are already preparing to try again with a similar measure.

STRIKE TWO: Arkansas's attorney general, for the second time, has rejected the language of a ballot initiative filed to deny public benefits to unauthorized immigrants. The a.g. has said the language is ambiguous and that initiative sponsors need to hire an attorney; he suggested that he could substitute language himself, but after being criticized for his first rejection of the measure, he decided not to.

THESE COPS ARE MAD: Police officers in Monrovia, Calif are locked in a contract fight, and they've decided to use the ballot initiative process to help. They're circulating petitions on two local initiatives: one that would mandate they are paid at least the average salary of other local police departments, and another to prevent other city officials from making more than their counterparts in nearby municipalities. Also, they have posted billboards around town that read: "You're Approaching Monrovia. Higher Violent Crime. Fewer Officers Patrolling. Thank the City Manager and City Council." 

ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE MEASURE HEADED FOR CALIFORNIA BALLOT: Or so its supporters say. This tracks though with information first reported here over the weekend that the initiative, at $2 per signature, had made the ballot. This is in spite of a well-organized blocking campaign by opponents. One wonders, however, why backers are spending their money. Some polls suggest that Californian is close to having a majority of citizens who support same-sex marriage, and the Republican governor has vowed to fight this.  

$10 PER HOUR IN EUREKA: Signature gathering is about to begin on a new minimum wage ballot initiative that would guarantee $10 per hour to anyone working in the city of Eureka on California's northern coast.

MOMENTUM FOR COLORADO RIGHT TO WORK: That's according to its supporters, who are lining up endorsements. Business groups are backing it, but they should be wary. A frontal attack on labor is likely to unite the state's unions and turn out to be a setback for business interests. Exhibit A: California, the year 2005.  

A  busy, busy day for blockbuster democracy... 10 items follow.

ARKANSAS RE-FILING: After the attorney general rejected the first version, an initiative to require proof of citizenship or legal status to receive public benefits has been refiled by its supporters. This measure appears headed for the November ballot. It creats a political dilemma in particular for Democrats, who continue to have a hold on Arkansas politics that they've lost in other Southern states. It also could complicate the efforts of Democratic presidential candidates, who would be almost certain to oppose it,  to win a state that may well be in play in a Democratic year. 

COLORADO HISTORY LESSON: The writer David Sirota goes deep -- very deep -- in explaining the history behind the current labor-business imbroglio that appears headed to the ballot.in Colorado. All the way to the Ludlow Massacre (he name-checks my Los Angeles Times colleague Scott Martelle's, whose book about that slaughter, Blood Passion, is an instant classic of Western history). Sirota sees Gov. Bill Ritter's efforts to find a compromise and head off ballot measures in a very dark, anti-union way. That may not be fair, but the piece is worth reading.