FRanky Carrillo: Most people can’t imagine being found guilty of a crime they didn’t commit. I never expected that my youth would slip away in prison after I was wrongly convicted.
Sheila Kuehl on Prop 33: Automobile Insurance Laws in California
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Sheila Kuehl: About 20% of California’s insureds would presumably see their rates go up because they had a lapse in insurance that didn’t fit into acertain categories.
Safer Foods, Saner Prison Sentencing, No Death Penalty Vie for Voter Attention
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Dick Price: At the American Civil Liberties Union’s Pasadena/Foothills Chapter forum this past Tuesday, September 11th, advocates made their case for three particularly contentious initiatives on California’s November ballot:
Death Penalty: Let Voters Decide
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James Clark: Thousands of Californians are joining together to call on local district attorneys to stop seeking death sentences until voters get a chance to weigh in on this broken system.
Reduced Drug Possession Penalties Can Save Money and Lives
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Diana Zuñiga: Voters overwhelmingly believe that California’s prisons and jails are overcrowded and want more alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenders.
Abolishing the Death Penalty: The Tip of America’s Human Rights Iceberg
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David Love: As people are still put down like dogs in the land of the free – despite the momentum for abolition – capital punishment represents America’s human rights blind spot.
SB 490: Let the Voters Make an Informed Death Penalty Decision
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James Clark: No one is surprised to learn that California’s death penalty is a broken and dysfunctional system. After all, you don’t have to go far in California to find any government bureaucracy that’s broken or dysfunctional – it’s finding a functional government program that might take a while.
How Will the Open Primary Change Things for California Voters?
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How Will the Open Primary Change Things for California Voters? Can a teacher win an election when career politicians oppose her? Will progressive voters show up and the power of big money?
Tide Turning on California’s Death Penalty
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James Clark: The dominoes are falling fast as more and more people in California are learning what a waste the death penalty has become.
A (Mostly) Thoughtful California Electorate
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Ron Wolff: Voters demonstrated sophistication and thoughtfulness, first, because they failed to allow the onslaught of money to purchase their brains.
How to Get Your Own News
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Sharon Kyle: In a book entitled, Just How Stupid Are We?, author Rick Shenkman asks, “Are America’s voters prepared to shoulder the responsibility of running the most powerful nation on earth? Do a majority know enough?” These questions are not new but the current economic crisis brings to the fore the urgency of an answer.
Who Wants to Be Governor of the Failed State of California?
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If the miserable status quo continues and the Republicans succeed in their long-term project of turning California into a failed state the time might not be far off when the labor unions of this state are going to have no choice but to call for some kind of General Strike.
Wanted: Persistent Progressive Propositions
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Right-wingers at the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association understand that elections are transitory – and a long-term approach requires going back to the voters over and over again.
A White Gay’s Guide for Dealing with the Black Community: Chapter 9: Take a Chill Pill
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THE PROBLEM: Strong feelings of entitlement, refusal to work with others, racism, extreme issues with class, sudden temper tantrums THE PRESCRIPTION: Take as needed one chill pill with a large glass of reality… The gay community needs to take a chill pill…seriously. Protesting President Barack Obama outside of the Beverly Hilton Hotel during a fundraiser [...]
Prop 8 Ruling: The Measure of a Court
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Yesterday, the California Supreme Court ruled on the validity of Proposition 8, the measure adopted by California voters last November to add a new section 7.5 to Article I of the California Constitution, as follows: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California”. The measure was challenged by a [...]
Court Should Strike Down Proposition 8
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The California Supreme Court finds itself center stage this Thursday when it will hear oral arguments on whether it should uphold Proposition 8′s ban on same-sex marriage. The case touches the heart of our democracy and poses a profound question: can a bare majority of voters strip away an inalienable right through the initiative process? [...]
God Files Suit to Support Prop 8
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The California Supreme Court is being hit with numerous lawsuits regarding Proposition 8, the anti-American constitutional revision disguised as an amendment voters passed November 4 to take civil-marriage rights away from GLBT citizens. Most of the cases rightly oppose the measure, and the high court has agreed to hear and consider them. One amicus brief [...]
No on Proposition 11?
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by Herb Engstrom – The October issue of “The Democratic Voice,” the newsletter of the Santa Clara County Democratic Club, contained an article entitled “No on Proposition 11″ by member Jeanne Lamar. Those of us who support Prop. 11 were not given an opportunity to respond before the publication of the newsletter. I’ll take this [...]
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Poizner Smears Whitman for Sharing Obama’s Immigration Position in California Governor’s Race
Andrea Christina Nill: A businessman like Poizner should also be sensitive to the fact that California could risk losing $164.2 billion in expenditures, $72.9 billion in economic output, and approximately 717,000 jobs if it removed all of its undocumented immigrants.