[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

If you're looking for more evidence of John McCain being out of step with California,look no further than his own supporter, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whotold Meet the Press this morning he opposes the proposed gay marriageban, while McCain recently voiced his support for it. This also comeson the heels of a high profile disagreement between the two overoffshore oil drilling.

Schwarzenegger also told Tom Brokow this morning that he is disappointed by the gridlock in Washington and wants to see the parties work together, the Associated Press reports, advice they could probably use in Sacramento as well.

In case you missed, we're back to the 1-10 series for ballot measures,as Secretary of State Debra Bowen recently assigned number to thepropositions, Capitol Alert reports. Some highlights: Proposition 1 onhigh speed rail funding, Proposition 2 on the treatment of farmanimals, Proposition 4 on parental consent for abortion (the thirdattempt), Proposition 8 banning gay marriage and Proposition 11 onredistricting.

There's more... 

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Sec. Bowen just announced that she has assigned numbers for the boatload of initiatives that will be on the ballot in November.

So get used to these numbers.  You are going to be seeing these a lot on this website, your TV screen and your mailbox.  We need to refine the shorthand for these initiatives.  This admittedly a quick pass at it.  The framing needs to be tweaked and I am sure there will be some argument within the progressive left about these initiatives.

Prop. 1 High Speed Rail

Prop 2 Treatment of Farm Animals

Prop 3 Children's Hospital Bond

Prop 4 Parental Notification

Prop 5 Parole and Rehab of Nonviolent Offenders

Prop 6 Tough on Crime

Prop 7 Renewable Energy

Prop 8 Take Away Marriage Equality

Prop 9 Victims Rights and Parole

Prop 10 Alternative Fuels and Renewable Energy Bonds

Prop 11 Redistricting

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

At its executive board meeting this past weekend in Millbrae, the California Democratic Party voted to take the following positions on ballot measures that have already qualified or will likely appear on the November 2008 statewide ballot.

Redistricting: OPPOSE
High-speed rail bond: SUPPORT
Treatment of farm animals: SUPPORT
Children’s hospital bond: SUPPORT
Parental notification for abortion: OPPOSE
Sentencing of nonviolent offenders: OPPOSE
Increased criminal penalties: OPPOSE
Renewable energy requirements (solar): OPPOSE
Same-sex marriage ban: OPPOSE
Criminal justice system, victims’ rights: NEUTRAL
Alternative fuels and renewable energy bond: NEUTRAL

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

Since the 1980’s, initiative campaigns have been big business. Where once initiatives were few and far between because of the difficulty of signature gathering (a large grass roots movement was usually required), now signature-gathering firms were formed to qualify petitions for money.

The people were hired under the fiction of “independent contractors” so that the firms would not have to pay social security or workers compensation benefits (as required by law for employers). They were not paid a “wage” – which might have made them employees – but instead paid on a ‘bounty’ basis: so much per signature.

People employed in this business would come and go. But the local “contractors” who worked for the parent firms would have a network of people interested in work of this sort. Those who were successful were those who could talk people into signing petitions. The most successful had the skills of carnival con men.

Voters are routinely conned into signing petitions for ballot measures they might well oppose if they knew its real purpose. But they are provided information designed to get them to sign, not to inform them. If you sign this, the “people will get to decide”, and so on.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank D. Russo

The California Secretary of State website will have live election results with the best real time information for not only the presidential race, but also ballot propositions and some of the local races. Go to the Secretary of State’s site and click on Election Night Results near the bottom left hand side of the site.

For statewide results and breakdowns by county, go to this page.

For those delegate counters of you interested in the Democratic side, go to this page and you can select individual Congressional Districts or see how all of California’s 53 Congressional Districts are voting. this will give you the voting breakdown, although it will be difficult to interpret the delegate breakdown.

For ballot measures go to this site.

Finally, to see where the votes are coming in from, county by county, you may want to check out this page which will show how much of a county's vote is in.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Key bills and issues we’ve been following during the past week and beyond

By Hannah Beth Jackson

With the Presidential Primary and an assortment of ballot measures coming to the fore between now and Election Day, February 5, 2008, Speak Out California is pleased to announce its highly acclaimed one-stop voter guide will be posted on our site within the next few days. We'll be sending it out to our regular subscribers so watch for it in your email!

With seven ballot measures to evaluate and decide, the electioneering is well under-way. Let Speak Out California help you sift through all the hype and conflicting claims of what they do and don't do. We'll provide the progressive perspective on the propositions and give you the key links to all the information you'll need to decide for yourselves, regardless of the millions of dollars being spent by those selling their positions on each of the measures. It's democracy without the dollars, just as it should be. So watch for the Voter Guide coming to you this week!

So what's happening in Sacramento?

by Dante Atkins (hekebolos) [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

kos (DailyKos founder) has a thread up asking you to convince him to vote yes on any of the ballot measures.  His default is to vote no on everything because he hates the ballot initiative process (as do I), but maybe you can earn a vote for your favorite initiative by chiming in.

Personally, I asked for him to vote yes on prop 92.