It’s likely the New Mexico Legislature will take up domestic partnerships again during January’s regular legislative session after rejecting several previous measures. Not that other states are a predictor of what may happen here, but Tuesday’s elections produced mixed results for supporters. Maine voters defeated a same-sex marriage law. Meanwhile, voters in Washington state appeared to have approved an expansion of its domestic partnership law that gives same-sex couples most of the same rights as married couples.

The same voters that shot down Maine’s same-sex marriage law expanded that state’s medical marijuana law by easing access to marijuana for individuals with certain medical conditions, expanding the list of qualifying medical conditions and allowing for a statewide system of storefront distribution centers, the Bangor Daily News reports. That last bit — a statewide distribution system — is a nod to New Mexico. While 13 states permit medical use of marijuana, only Rhode Island and New Mexico have similar dispensary provisions, according to the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., the paper reported.

Republicans may have taken two gubernatorial seats in Tuesday’s elections, but Democrats picked up a New York congressional seat that hasn’t gone to a Democrat since the 19th century. The mixed bag seems to complicate the narrative that the GOP had a clean sweep Tuesday night. Like nearly all political races, local factors played a role, so it’s probably too early to tell exactly what Tuesday’s winners and losers means for next year’s mid-term elections, although you’ll read much today from people who will try to persuade you that they do know.

Texas voters took a step Tuesday toward lifting more of the state’s public universities into the ranks of major national research institutions by approving a constitutional amendment freeing up about $500 million from a dormant higher education account, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

Voters in financially depressed Ohio, which has been severely battered by the economic downturn, approved opening casinos in four cities Tuesday, creating expectations for much-needed jobs at the same time opponents contemplated challenging the voters’ decision.

Finally, an intellectual giant died over the weekend. Philosopher and anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who revolutionized the way the world looked at what were then called “primitive” cultures. His work influenced scholars across several disciplines for a generation. Widely read and endlessly debated, his work also provoked a fierce backlash among intellectuals coming along a generation later, such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Clifford Geertz.