I've cross-posted this diary to my blog, where I've posted two photos featuring the sign and t-shirt from the pro-gay marriage forces. You'll also find links there to the Equality for All group and Ann Rostow's column mentioned below.

Patrick Range McDonald opines on Equality for All's drive to defeat the ballot initiative in California in LA Weekly:

Voters will now have the final say on gay marriage in November. Gay rights activists have already been gearing up for the fight, particularly the coalition group Equality For All. So far, the umbrella organization touts big time gay and civil rights credentials, with the Human Rights Campaign, the ACLU, Lambda Legal, the LA Gay & Lesbian Center, the California NAACP, and others joining forces to do battle. Labor unions and groups of that ilk are glaringly absent from the Equality For All roster.[...]

The anti-marriage amendment is back.  After it looked like the amendment had been derailed, it is back on the agenda for the Arizona House of Representatives.  Things may move very quickly-the House could vote on the amendment at any time, possibly on today, April 22, and the Senate might immediately follow.  If the legislature approves the amendment, it will be on this November's ballot, just two years after a similar effort was defeated.

Help needed below

Missourians and national groups alike have been calling for mandatory Renewable Electricity Standards (RES). No other policy is as effective at spurring the development of renewable energy.

Unfortunately, Missouri is missing this opportunity, as our elected leaders have not yet passed this critical law. Two-thirds of Missourians support an RES, so it's up to us to bring this issue to Missouri voters.  

Help get the Clean Energy Initiative on Missouri's November 2008 ballot!

The increasingly desperate GOP are at it again, using dirty tricks to try and rig an election. Watch as the articulate and insightful Bradley Whitford sheds light on this attempt to manipulate California law and the will of the people. Whitford says,

This would be a great story. Big money, intrigue, dirty tricks. But this TV and we have to stop them.

When it comes to Presidential elections, California like most states, is winner take all. This means that the candidate who wins a state’s popular vote, gets all of that state’s electoral votes. But a proposed ballot initiative that would change these rules and divide up California’s electoral votes up by district has been resurrected. (It had previously failed). This last-minute political dirty trick would in essence hand the Republican candidate twenty more votes in 2008, as many as the entire state of Ohio and more likely than not the presidential election.

Sensing that he failed to garner any support amongst the voters of California (and more importantly the investors on Wall Street), Assemblyman Chuck DeVore withdrew his planned ballot initiative that would have lifted the moratorium on nuclear power in California.  The assemblyman met his first defeat regarding his plan to bring more plutonium waste to California when his bill to lift the moratorium failed miserably in Committee earlier this year.  Incensed, DeVore took the issue to the voters of California, hoping to qualify for a ballot initiative--but the practical people of California didn't buy into his cheap tricks.

Many of you have read Vikingkingq's excellent diary on ballot petition fraud in California.  I encountered the same situation a few weeks ago in Davis.  

Here's what I saw:  the petition gatherers were at a table with signs that said "Children's Hospital Bond - UC."  On the table were many clipboards all with the bond initiative on top.  The guy told me, "It has 4 parts, so sign all four pages."  The clipboard had rubber bands above and below the written description of the petition, so when you pull up the page to sign beneath, the rubber band obscures the written part of the petition above.  I pulled up the page and one underneath was the electoral college vote split; one was the eminent domain one; and I didn't see the third because I got upset and started yelling at the guy before I could see it!

I immediately called the Secretary of State's office.  I also talked to the local police and the county elections board.  Here's what they told me.

They're back!

Last year we defeated a right-wing anti-environment proposition that would have prevented "the State, local governments – and even voters – from acting to protect our wildlife, open space, coastline, farmland and other important resources."

The anti-government extremists have are at it again.  They are circulating petitions for a new--and even worse!--version of this right-wing rip-off.  Here's what the Planning and Conservation League says about it:

Wealthy owners of apartments and mobile home parks are currently collecting signatures to place another initiative on California's June 2008 ballot that they'd like you to believe is about eminent domain. And once again, they're hiding their anti-environment agenda. Tucked into the text of the initiative are provisions that would effectively prohibit laws and regulations that are intended to protect our air, land, water, and coasts from pollution, as well as laws that regulate development and prevent sprawl.

You can stop them.  See below.

Just like your stereotypical undead movie monster, the proposed ballot initiative to change the allocation of California's electoral votes seems to have returned from the grave, poised to wreak havoc once again.

Despite the numerous reports from four weeks ago that the backers of the initiative were abandoning their effort once it was revealed that they were having problems raising money for the signature drive (and that what little there was coming from a sketchy source), some of the warier amongst us warned that there was always the possibility that the measure could be revived if a major financial backer could be located.

And guess what?  As-yet unnamed Republican "reformers" have stepped forward to do just that.  More details below the fold.

Liberals have come a log way since 2000 in holding businesses and pundits accountable for what they say. The recent exposure of the right-wing lies about 12-year-old Graeme Frost's family and the subsequent revelations of the involvement of an aide from Mitch McConnell's office in those attacks, show yet again that we liberals are beginning to make a difference in the political dialogue.

By now, you've hopefully heard about the GOP plot to steal the 2008 election by divvying up California's electoral votes by Congressional district, thus giving the GOP candidate about 20 or so electoral votes from our 55, thanks to the gerrymandered "safe" Republican districts.

Well, the latest Rasmussen poll just released this morning has some good news regarding the dirty GOP ballot initiative.

See below the fold....