[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

The U.S. Supreme Court opened a door to change yesterday – or opened a can of worms. In a decision upholding the State of Washington’s modified “blanket” primary, it dramatically reduced the ability of the major parties to control their own nomination process.

The Washington system advances the two top vote-getters from the primary election to a run-off in the general. While participation in the primary is “closed” – only democratic registrants may vote in the ‘democratic’ side of the primary – in the runoff all voters can participate (as today) with the difference being the top two vote-getters could easily be from the same party in areas dominated by that party.

If the Democrats could keep any Democratic candidate from filing in the primary, then Democratic voters could be the margin of victory between two Republicans in November. Presumably this would force GOP candidates toward the “center” in an effort to appeal to the more liberal Democratic voters.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Rather than debate the merits of whether Prop 93 is an effective way to provide legislators with more experience, the shrill opponents of the initiative pulled out a prop for the cameras today: a Trojan Horse. One problem with their Mr. Ed: he, like much of their campaign money, is from out-of-state. The license plates on the trailer carrying the Trojan Horse were from Michigan (see photo).
 
Aside from Steve Poizner, the insurance commissioner whose pockets are once again being picked by GOP political consultants, the anti-93 campaign is being driven by U.S. Term Limits, a Washington, D.C.-based organization. Its leader is on the way to the Big House for campaign fraud.
 
No word on whether Jon Fleischman of the Flash Report was behind the Trojan Horse with a broom trying to clean up this latest mess by the Poizner-funded campaign.

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Well, it looks like it's going to happen. The Right wingers aren't ones to give up just because they got rebuffed once.  They're at it again, and, if you believe them, they've got the signatures to get on the ballot:

Today, Californians for Property Rights Protection announced that the campaign has collected well over 700,000 signatures needed to qualify the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act for the June 2008 ballot. In order to qualify the eminent domain reform ballot measure, supporters must collect 694,354 valid signatures by November 26, 2007. The campaign is on track to submit more than 1 million signatures before this deadline. Link here

More on this proposition over the flip and why this is, yet again, a trojan horse.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Randy Bayne
THE BAYNE OF BLOG'S CALIFORNIA NOTES

That is the message the California Nurses Association and California School Employees Association would like to get out. There is only one problem, they are being ignored.

The prevailing attitude seems to be that if you just ignore SB 840 and the support it has among a majority of Californians, maybe it will just go away. Legislators aren't listening – with a few exceptions, the Governor has never listened – to the people, and the insurance industry can't hear us over the jingling of their outrageous profits. And, many legislators can't see us over the stacks of cash they receive from the insurance lobby.

by Sheri Divers [courtesy of Blog for America]

1. Rebuttal To Dill Support of the HR811 Trojan Horse, The Scoop

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0705/S00043.htm

2. Hillary Sympathizes with Impeach Sentiment in San Diego, American Chronicle

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=25832