by Assemblymember_Levine [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

It's becoming predictable every election season. California's anti-gay groups are attempting to put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the November ballot. They presume Californians will agree with them and flock to the polls, erasing years of progress.

My hope is this November California voters will be galvanized and electrified by a sense of hope for the future, not limiting it. That's why I am STRONGLY supporting the "Decline to Sign" campaign fighting to keep the same-sex marriage initiative off the ballot. Whether or not they succeed, California voters will be put on notice that this potential ban would write discrimination into the state's Constitution.

It's certainly not lost on most voters that the anti-gay marriage initiative is also a shameless tactic used by Republicans before to get voters to the polls. Recently, Arizona voters saw they were being played for fools by the Republicans and defeated a similar same-sex marriage ban.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

It’s becoming predictable every election season. California’s anti-gay groups are attempting to put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the November ballot. They presume Californians will agree with them and flock to the polls, erasing years of progress.
 
My hope is this November California voters will be galvanized and electrified by a sense of hope for the future, not limiting it. That’s why I am STRONGLY supporting the "Decline to Sign" campaign fighting to keep the same-sex marriage initiative off the ballot. Whether or not they succeed, California voters will be put on notice that this potential ban would write discrimination into the state’s Constitution.
 
It’s certainly not lost on most voters that the anti-gay marriage initiative is also a shameless tactic used by Republicans before to get voters to the polls. Recently, Arizona voters saw they were being played for fools by the Republicans and defeated a similar same-sex marriage ban.

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[courtesy of California Progress Report]

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

By Hannah Beth Jackson

by dday [courtesy of Calitics: Soapblox California - Front Page]

I appreciate all the comments in my somewhat provocative diary on Chevron's $50,000 donation to the CDP and why I think there's a better way to do business.  I'm no hallowed saint when it comes to politics, and I understand that right now it takes lots of cash.  But my main point is that money received from this particular company at this particular time with these particular underlying scenarios, whether taken in good faith or bad, will not do as much to reach new voters as it will alienate old ones.  People have every right to assume that a politician or a party who receives a large donation from a corporate entity will be expecting something in return, as the instances of such exchanges being consummated are too numerous to count.  And $50,000 buys 1 ad in LA during election season, maybe not all of it, but it drives hundreds of activists crazy, and every decline-to-state voter that hears about it just shakes their head and continues to believe the perception that "they're all the same" in politics.  I know personally, from the reaction this has gotten, that people are upset.  It doesn't mean they'll stop working for the party, but maybe they'll stuff one less envelope.  Maybe they'll make one less phone call.  And maybe they just won't feel as invested in a big-donor top-down party as they would in a small-donor bottom-up one.

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