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Jun 9, 2022 · After all, the one sure thing in the election that ended Tuesday was supposed to be that Republicans win elections in California’s 4th Senate District. The region backed former President Trump ...
- The California Direct Legislation League
- 1911 to Present
- Milestones
- High Stakes Spending
- Paid Circulators
- Prop 13
- "Ballot-Box Budgeting"
- External Links
A Philadelphian who held doctorates in both medicine and philosophy, Dr. John Haynes moved west to Los Angeles in 1887, at the age of 34. He established a successful medical practice, counting many prominent Southern Californians among his patients, invested his profits skillfully in real estate, and eventually became a millionaire. In 1895, Haynes...
Free Speech
Reformers in Los Angeles won voter approval, in December 1911, of a unique local initiative to create a municipally owned, yet editorially independent, newspaper to compete with the anti-labor, anti-reform Los Angeles Timesand provide unbiased news and an equal forum for all political views. Each political party was given a column in every weekly edition. This bold experiment in free speech attracted the state's top newspaper talent and got off to a highly successful start. After less than a...
Anti-initiative forces
The first significant statewide initiative in California abolished the poll tax in 1914, and a construction bond initiativefor the University of California also won voter approval that year. Immediately thereafter, anti-initiative forces launched their first counterattack, in the form of a constitutional amendment passed by the legislature to make it more difficult to pass initiative bond proposals. Haynes mobilized his pro-initiative forces and defeated the amendment at the polls in 1915. An...
Law enforcement initiatives
On the ballot in 1934 were four successful constitutional initiatives to revamp the state's law enforcement and criminal justice systems. All four were sponsored by Alameda County District Attorney Earl Warren, who went on to become the state's attorney general in 1938, its governor in 1942, and the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953. The principal changes involved procedures for judicial selection and retention, and increasing the woefully inadequate powers and jurisdiction of t...
1911: On October 10, Proposition 7 (the "I&R Amendment"), is enacted.1943: The cost of submitting proposed language to election officials for a ballot title and summarywas set at $200.1960:Ballot propositions, once confined to the November ballot, are now also placed on California's June primary ballot.1966: Californians enacted Proposition 1A, making 1966 the last year that the indirect initiated state statuteprocess was used in the state.1974: Proposition 9 was approved, which gave the Attorney General of California the sole authority to prepare ballot titles and summaries for proposed initiatives. The AGis required by this law to...1984: The first year that statewide ballot propositions were numbered sequentially based on numbers from previous years. In 1982 and earlier, measures on the ballot in June started with "Propositio...One of the highest stakes initiative campaigns in terms of campaign spending was in 1956, over a struggle over changes in the state regulation and taxation of oil and gas production. Proposition 4 that year was sponsored by a group of oil companies that sought to make their business more profitable, and opposed by another group of oil firms that pr...
The California initiative process gave rise to a new breed of campaign professional: the paid petition circulator. With signature requirements doubling nearly every decade, citizen groups were unable to rely solely on volunteer effort. As early as World War I, Joseph Robinson was offering his organizing services to initiative proponents. His firm, ...
One of California's most famous initiatives was Prop 13. "On June 6th, 1978, nearly two-thirds of California's voters passed Proposition 13, reducing the state's property tax by about 57%. Prior to Proposition 13 property taxes were out of control. People were losing their homes because they could not pay their property taxes. Yet, government did n...
In 2009, California's tax revenues declined. This led to a multi-billion budget gap. Several politicians and pundits blamed the problem on California's initiatives. California State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg denounced ballot-box budgeting. Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneggersaid, "All of those propositions tell us how we must spend our mone...
History of California initiatives (PDF) A 2002 report from the California Secretary of StateOn September 18, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom (D) signed SB 970 into law, moving California's primary elections for congressional and state-level offices in midterm (i.e., non-presidential) election years to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June. The modification did not apply to presidential election years.
May 31, 2018 · How did California end up with a “jungle primary”? Partisanship in the California Legislation had, at times, become so polarized that at one point it left the state without a budget for 100 ...
- luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com
Jun 13, 2022 · Update: Democrats Tim Robertson and Marie Alvarado-Gil finished first and second in the June 7 primary and will face off in the Nov. 8 general election. If you need an example of just how befuddling California’s top-two primary system can be, consider the case of the $50,000 mailer sent to voters across 13 California counties in early June.
May 2, 2012 · The passage of Proposition 14 in 2010 changed the way primary elections work in California. Previously, California had used a "closed" primary system, the object being for each party to nominate a single candidate to run in the general election. It was closed in the sense that only party members were allowed to help decide on their own nominee.
Nov 8, 2022 · California now sends mail ballots to all registered voters, and any ballots postmarked by Nov. 8 were still counted if they arrived at county election offices by Nov. 15. That can delay final results .
