San Jose Mercury News
Los Angeles voters may be asked if condoms should be required in pornographic movies if a health advocacy group’s campaign continues to advance.AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein says his group has collected more than enough signatures to qualify a citywide ballot initiative for the June 2012 election. The ballot measure would require porn producers to shoot safe-sex porn as a condition of getting a filming permit in Los Angeles.
A pair of pension reform initiatives filed Wednesday could shake up the Capitol landscape and jolt reluctant Democrats and labor leaders into acting on Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to overhaul pensions. Initially lukewarm if not hostile to Brown’s plan, Democrats and public employee unions got a glimpse of the alternative — measures that would require a lot more sacrifices from government workers than Brown’s week-old proposal.
An allegation that the Palo Alto City Council violated state law when it placed a measure on the Nov. 8 ballot to repeal binding interest arbitration for its public safety unions will not be resolved until voters have had their say. The International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 1319, filed an unfair labor practice complaint in September with the state Public Employment Relations Board, or PERB, claiming that the city was required to “meet and confer” with it before authorizing Measure D. The city says the decision wasn’t subject to the rule, and even if it was, the union had opportunities to provide input.
A coalition led by a group of Stanford University lawyers intends to put an initiative on the November 2012 ballot to reform California’s Three Strikes Law, the harshest such sentencing law in the nation. The group has secured at least one major financial backer, David W. Mills, a former investment banker and Stanford Law School professor. It also hired San Francisco political consultant Averell “Ace” Smith to lead what is expected to be a fiery campaign.
Democrats in the state Senate approved two bills Monday designed to shorten the reins on professional signature-gatherers who have come to dominate California’s initiative process. Under one bill, individuals would have to wear large-print badges specifying whether they are volunteers or are being paid to collect voter signatures.
The Attorney General’s office on Tuesday released its title and summary on a ballot measure that would tax oil companies, with proceeds used to increase education spending by $2 billion to $3 billion a year. Backers of the initiative can now begin to collect signatures. Easier said than done, especially for what is basically a one-man operation. Peter Mathews, a Southern California college professor, said he will be enlisting students around the state to gather the signatures, using Facebook and Twitter to generate interest.
A movement to put an Arizona-style immigration measure on the California ballot in 2012 appears to have fizzled. Republican activist Michael Erickson gained national attention just before Thanksgiving when the state approved his gathering of signatures for a ballot initiative that would crack down on illegal immigration in the state. It would have required police to check the immigration status of people they stopped and suspected of being in the country illegally, and it would have criminalized seeking work while concealing immigration status.
Walmart will again try to expand its Milpitas store by nearly 18,460 square feet to allow liquor sales, groceries and 24-hour operation, according to documents filed today. Walmart filed its intent to hold a 180-day signature-gathering campaign today to bring about a ballot initiative for special election this fall, countering Milpitas City Council’s rejection of the same project last year. “Our goal with the proposed remodel and expansion is to offer a better shopping experience, create additional jobs, and generate tax revenues for the city,” Angie Stoner, Walmart’s senior manager of public affairs, said today.
A group dedicated to derailing plans for a BART extension through downtown Livermore took a step forward this week. Opponents of the proposed route filed a notice Thursday with the city clerk’s office of their intent to circulate a petition requesting an initiative be placed on the ballot.
At a time when the state’s schools and economy are both suffering, California teachers are battling business interests over corporate tax cuts that could be worth billions of dollars over the next few years. Voters will get to settle the dispute next month by choosing sides on Proposition 24, which would repeal the cuts. And while each camp has mustered studies and projections to bolster their rhetoric, at the center is a debate over the best way to secure California’s economy over the long term.
In an urgent attempt to maintain universal health coverage for children in Santa Clara County, community leaders are organizing a campaign to rescue one of the region’s landmark programs for working poor families. Their goal is to win broad support for a November ballot measure that would pump $13.5 million per year into the Healthy Kids program through a $29-a-year parcel tax on county property owners. County leaders recognize the challenge: Asking voters in a down economy to assist other families who can’t afford insurance for their children.
Four days after turning in paperwork for an initiative that would have increased San Carlos police staffing and salaries ”” in addition to requiring voter approval for the city to contract for police services ”” the city’s police union submitted a revised proposal and admitted the original was a mistake. The revised proposal turned in Monday by the Police Officers Association keeps a section in the original that would prohibit the city from outsourcing police services without prior voter approval and reinstate the department if it is outsourced before the measure’s passage.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is urging voters to back an initiative on Tuesday’s ballot that would scrap the primary system for state and congressional elections. After casting his own ballot in a Los Angeles elementary school, Schwarzenegger said voters could help end partisan stalemates in the California Legislature by supporting Proposition 14. The so-called open ballot initiative allows voters to cast ballots for any candidate regardless of party affiliation, with the top two vote-getters advancing to the general election.
Menlo Park voters will get a chance this fall to take some control over the escalating costs of public employee pension benefits when they go to the polls. The city council gave them that power when it unanimously voted early Wednesday morning to send an initiative to the November ballot that would reduce pension benefits for new city employees.
Ever since the near-collapse of California’s finances last year, angry voters have threatened to bolt for the ballot box and do something they’re convinced lawmakers can’t: make drastic changes to a state that’s fundamentally broken. And indeed, Californians will face a crop of propositions in the voting booth this June, all of them promising change. But don’t expect dramatics like a constitutional convention.