`The results on November Fourth were a mixed bag because both parties had wins and losses. Here are some of the biggest things that happened and how they apply to you:

National Results

The Republicans Won Congress

• What does this mean for you? Picture your family before Thanksgiving Dinner. Everyone wants turkey for the main course, except for your mother, who is vegetarian and cooking a tofu main course. This situation is a recipe for some major squabbling, and something similar is likely to happen now that the Republicans have a Congress majority. Congress and Obama will either have to make big concessions to each other or get very little done. For instance, the Republicans have been trying to take down the controversial Obama Care policy since it was introduced, and they are likely to try to take it down now that they have a majority. They dislike the policy, which seeks to make affordable health care and insurance more accessible, because they feel that it drives up taxes and health care costs. Obama will probably veto the repeal when it happens.

State Results

Initiative 594 Passed; Initiative 591 Failed

• What does this mean for you? Imagine yourself at school one day. It’s lunchtime, and you have just taken your seat when you hear an explosive bang. You whip your head around and see a student with a gun. Several kids are sprawled on the ground, bleeding and unconscious. If your legs can still function, you make a mad rush for the exit and pray that you and your friends will stay safe. The only thing that is certain is that your school will never be the same. School shootings are every student’s worst nightmare, and Initiatives 594 and 591 are closely connected to the future of further incidents in our state. The point of 594 is to expand background checks on gun sales, while 591 would do the opposite. The passage of 594 is especially heartening after the Marysville Pilchuck High School shooting on October 24, which resulted in the deaths of five students. Hopefully this initiative will help to prevent something similar from happening at our school.

Initiative 1351 Passed

• What does this mean for you? Have you ever been in a class that was REALLY big? Do you remember feeling like the teacher was overextended or that individual students weren’t getting enough attention? Initiative 1351 seeks to relieve these problems by requiring the reduction of all classes grades Kindergarten to 12th. When the law is fully implemented after the four year phasing-in period, grades Kindergarten through 3rd won’t be allowed to have more than 15-17 students, while grades 4th through 12th won’t have more than 22-25 students. As always, the real issue comes down to money in the end. Reducing class sizes over the next four years will require the hiring of about 15000 new teachers, which will add another $5 billion to education costs. Because the state will have a difficult time coming up with this kind of revenue, there is talk that the law won’t even go into action.