The Blockbuster Democracy Blog

The Seattle PI web site makes that argument, after another defeat for Washington state's leading initiative sponsor, Tim Eyman, last week.

State Sen. George Runner, sponsor of a ballot initiative requiring citizens to show government-issued photo ID before voting, is so angry about the title that Attorney General Jerry Brown gave his measure that he's gone to court to get it changed. Republican operative (and friend of the blog) Tom del Becarro makes Runner's case here (along with a few gratuitous swipes at ACORN--ignore those and read to the place where the title Brown gave the measure is compared with a previous title on a similar measure).

The problem here isn't Brown, it's the system. California gives the attorney general -- an elected official and, in most eras, the state's second most prominent statewide politician -- the authority to write titles and summaries for ballot initiatives. And naturally, there have been constant complaints about the titles -- and suspicions about the political motives of attorneys general writing those titles. 

Both races are formally close to call. But right now, it looks like a split decision on questions of gay unions. In Maine, the so-called "people's veto" of a new state law legalizing same-sex marriage leads by 4 points with more than half of the votes counted. If that holds up, the veto succeeds -- thus voiding the same-sex marriage law.

In Washington state, however, a referendum on a law there granting all the rights of marriage (except the title) to registered domestic partners appears likely to fail. That is, the law is being upheld, currently by a two point margin.

For results on the Maine marriage referendum and TABOR initiative, Washington state's gay rights referendum and spending limit, and on other ballot measures all in one place, check out this page on Ballotpedia.

This blog post also appears at TNR.com. For a fuller treatment of the same topic, please check out my column this week at The Daily Beast.

In the days ahead, you may hear all kinds of explanations for why San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom dropped out of the race for governor. Poor fundraising. Poor standing the polls. Internal problems in his campaign. But none of them were decisive. Newsom had only one problem, but it was a problem to which there simply is no solution.

That problem is the name Brown.

This state has had only three Democratic governors in the past 67 years. Pat Brown. His son Jerry. And Jerry's chief of staff Gray Davis. So when it comes to successful California Democratic gubernatorial candidates, running as a Brown is pretty much a must. Newsom's challenge against Jerry, a popular former governor who was Newsom's only opponent, was a longshot even without the history. But, more than 40 years after Ronald Reagan unceremoniously denied him a third term, Pat Brown has been thoroughly rehabilitated. Simply invoking the name of Jerry's father serves as a shorthand for California's glorious mid-century past of growth and good schools. Jerry, despite having been a very different governor from his father, basks in that reflected nostalgia.

Writing at Fox & Hounds Daily, Loren Kaye says he wants to be the clerk to the constitutional convention, and who can blame him? There's a lot of power there. Look for a real contest to develop if these initiatives pass next year and there is a convention.

UPDATED Oct. 29, noon:

Over at Chris Reed's "America's Finest Blog" (a reference to San Diego's self-proclaimed title, "America's Finest City"), there's an interesting exchange between Reed and a spokesman for California treasurer Bill Lockyer over the demise of a 2005 initiative that sought to limit future pension benefits. The title and summary prepared by the office of Lockyer, who was then attorney general, helped kill the measure, but, as someone who wrote the book about the campaign, even without the title and summary, the pension initiative would have been toast. The issue is being revisited now because Lockyer, at a legislative hearing last week, blasted lawmakers of his own party -- he's a Democrat -- and said that pension obligations would bankrupt the state.

That was the subject line of the first email I received this morning. Nothing like covering California initiative politics. What's the story? The idea of taxing and regulating marijuana -- the subject of multiple ballot initiatives that have been filed here -- has a hearing today in the California State Assembly.

Bruno Kaufmann -- the Swiss-Swede journalist, president of the Initiative & Referendum Institute of Europe and the driving force behind the annual global forums on direct democracy -- has reached Manila, the halfway point in his family's six-month world tour of direct democratic spots. You can follow their travels here. And you can meet him Aug. 1-4, 2010, at the third annual global forum in San Francisco.