PAGING DANIEL PLAINVIEW: In California, Assembly Democrats are moving forward with a plan to establish a state severance tax on oil to fund education. It might not pass the legislature -- the Golden State requires a two-thirds vote to raise taxes but it could end up on the ballot. And the proposal demonstrates where, with oil companies reporting record profits and states struggling to balance their budgets, legislators will look for new revenues.

The best evidence of this is in Arkansas, where politicians of both parties are competing to raise the severance tax. Gov. Mike Beebe is using the threat of a ballot initiative -- his aides say he is drafting one -- to demand that the severance tax on natural gas be raised. He wants the funds used to fix state highways. (Under severance taxes, states typically tax the market value of natural gas or oil at the time of extraction).

The governor's initiative could compete with a similar measure that former Republican gubernatorial candidate Sheffield Nelson hopes to put before voters this November. Nelson's proposal would increase the state's severance tax to 7 percent of natural gas's market value at the time of extraction. In Nelson's proposal, the money would go to highways, county and city aid and higher education.

A TOUGH JOB FOR A SHERIFF: Marijuana legalization is a cause that has been advanced by ballot measures, mostly in local communities. Perhaps the most far reaching such initiative came in 2000, when voters in Mendocino County, Calif, adopted a measure legitimizing pot posession for personal use. This has made the county a magnet for marijuana growers and users. Now there's a measure to repeal the earlier measure. The local sheriff has the difficult job of staying neutral in the fight.

DO INITIATIVES OPPOSING SAME SEX MARRIAGE AND CIVIL UNIONS DRIVE PEOPLE TO THE POLLS?

Some studies suggest that the tactic, credited with giving President Bush a turnout boost in 2004, doesn't really work. GLAAD puts it together here.

FROM OUR FOREIGN BUREAS: Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez lost his constitutional referendum last year. Now his ally, Bolivian president Evo Morales, is attempting something similar. He wants a referendum on a new constitution May 4, but the courts have stepped in to stop him. Here's the Reuters story. is trying something similar.

ANOTHER PENNSYLVANIA VOTE: As the country focuses on the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, voters in Erie are debating a local measure banning so-called "bottle clubs" from the township. The  target: a club called Velvet, which may or may not be a bottle club, but definitely has scantily clad women. Those who ran a petition drive to get the question on the ballot call Velvet a bottle club, but the club's attorney disagrees.