The Sacramento Bee's Shane Goldmacher surveyed all the potential candidates for California governor in 2010 on their positions on the 12 statewide ballot measures. The full list is here, and the story is here. The frontrunners on both sides -- Jerry Brown and Dianne Feinstein for the Dems, Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman for the Reps -- ducked the survey.

Shane Goldmacher at the Sacramento Bee has this excellent item about the problems being created for the November election by the legislature and governor's ability to reach a budget deal. Such a deal would likely include a ballot measures, and the deadlines have been blown. State and county officials are worried about the ability to print and ship ballots. A politically important deadline is upon us. Next Friday, Sept. 5, is the day that international ballots go out to troops serving overseas.

Shane Goldmacher of the Sacramento Bee takes an excellent and thorough look at the phenomenon of California legislators opening ballot measure political accounts, through which they can accept contributions of unlimited amounts. He points out the potential for corruption from these donations, but also gives time to my view -- in fact, he quotes your blogger -- that with so many questions going to the ballot, legislators need these accounts to defend their policymaking. This is obviously not a good thing, and such accounts deserve the kind of scrutiny that the Bee is giving them. But you legislate with the system we have. What we need is a different system that fits direct democracy and the legislative process together in a smarter way. But how to do that?