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.

This week's High Country News has an interesting piece covering political donations for the 2008 presidential election in Western states.

The states include WA, OR, ID, MT, WY, CA, NV UT, CO, AZ, and NM.  

Overall, Romney has received the most in the West - $12.56 million, followed by Obama ($10.68 mil), Clinton ($10.28 mil), McCain ($6.46 mil), Richardson ($6.40 mil), Giuliani ($5.71 mil), Edwards ($4.56 mil), Dodd ($690 k), Biden ($540 k), and Paul ($470 k).

The University of California system (representing all the UCs) is being sued by the Association of Christian Schools and the Calvary Chapel Christian School of Murrieta, CA, over their admissions requirements.

UC accepts or rejects specific courses from high schools depending on whether the course content meets their admissions requirements.  Recently, UC has rejected some courses that the Calvary Chapel school has proposed because they are based on textbooks that do not conform to standard scientific thinking in areas such as biology (evolution, of course) and physics, but also some courses in English, history, and social studies.  The textbooks used in these classes were published by Bob Jones University Press, among other publishers.

I went to a fundraiser tonight for Charlie Brown (CA-04), who is running against one of the most corrupt members of Congress, John Doolittle.  Charlie Brown spoke passionately about his experience in the military, his love for his country and the need for change in Washington.  He never expected to run for public office, but saw that in this climate it was absolutely necessary.  Brown's son is about to leave for his fourth tour in Iraq.

Charlie Brown greeting some fellow attendees.  His wife, Jan, is on the left side of the frame.

The wingnut Family Research Council have a pledge for candidates to elected office to sign, similar to Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge, stating that they support a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.  It's called the Marriage Protection Pledge.

The pledge is the following:

   I, ________ , pledge to the families of the state of _______ , and to all the Americans, that I will protect the natural and historical definition of marriage by supporting a marriage protection amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

    I believe that marriage consists of the union of one man and one woman. Every person has an equal right to marry a person of the opposite sex.

    I believe that the uniting of persons of the same sex or opposite sex in a civil union, domestic partnership or other similiar relationship should not be valid or recognized with any legal benefits or privileges.

I see another frame for the Foley scandal:  he's just another fox guarding the henhouse - one of dozens put in place by this administration.

Putting Mark Foley in charge of the committee to protect our children from predators on the internet is just another example in a long line of many.  For the past six years, the Administration has been putting lobbyists in charge of regulating their own industries.

In November, Californians will vote on an initiative that would tax oil producers by $4 billion to fund alternative and renewable energy sources and to encourage conservation and energy independence.  One of the initiative's primary goals is to reduce California's dependence on oil by 25 percent over the next 10 years.  

Oil producers who drill in California currently pay very little to do so; Proposition 87, the Clean Alternative Energy Program, would set drilling fees to be comparable to those in Oklahoma, Alaska, and Texas.

The day after President Bush vetoed the federal stem cell bill, Governor Schwarzenegger authorized a loan of $150 million to California's stem cell research funding agency, the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine.

With all of the talk about voter databases and their value, I decided to read up a bit on the Republican and Democratic databases.  I thought I'd share what I've found out.  (I should note that several of the articles I found were from 2004, so it is possible that some of the findings below have changed.)