Elections 2008

In the run-up to a ballot initiative that would regulate the treatment of farm animals, an animal rights group has released footage showing egg-laying hens crammed into filthy cages, while, nearby, discarded birds are left to die in piles of corpses. The footage, the latest by animal rights activists working undercover at factory farms, is intended to boost support for Proposition 2.

One of the most closely watched Assembly races this year is underway in the California desert, where energized Democrats hope demographics and aggressive voter registration drives will help them end more than a decade of Republican domination. The battle over the 80th District Assembly seat, which includes all of Imperial County and eastern Riverside County, pits Republican Gary Jeandron, a former Palm Springs police chief, against Democrat Manuel Perez.

For a quarter century it has been a California dream on one drafting board or another -- a bullet train system so novel, environmentally friendly and fleet that it could reshape transportation in the car-crazy Golden State. Now, state voters will be asked Nov. 4 to provide some locomotion by approving nearly $10 billion as a down payment toward the ultimate vision of an 800-mile high-speed rail network.

Rossmoor, the tidy 1950s-era community bordered by a red brick wall, could become the second-smallest city in Orange County -- Villa Park is the tiniest -- if residents vote to incorporate on Election Day. At issue is whether the sliver of suburb with 10,500 residents can support itself financially with one small retail center. If voters approve cityhood, a majority must also support either a 7% or 9% utility tax to help keep the city afloat.

The odd duck on the Nov. 4 California ballot is the measure calling for chicken rights. The right for egg-laying hens "to lie down, stand up, fully extend their limbs and turn around freely" in their little cages, to quote from Proposition 2. The initiative, sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States, also applies to pregnant pigs and caged calves being raised for veal. But the largest pork producer in California already has said it will stop using small crates.

Childrens Hospital Los Angeles has an ambitious vision for its new building: ceilings decorated with happy images, playrooms on each floor, beds for parents to stay overnight in rooms with their ailing kids. Some of that $548-million project is being funded through borrowing that California voters approved in 2004 to help expand and update the state's 13 public and private children's hospitals. But all the hospitals say they need more. They are returning to the ballot Nov.

An intense, last-minute surge of voter interest has election officials across California scrambling to keep up with a record number of voter registrations and applications to cast ballots by mail. In many of the state's 58 counties, registrars have hired twice as many temporary workers as they did in 2004, and put them to work in split shifts in a race to enter reams of information into databases from thousands of incoming forms. When Nov.

At a recent voter fair at Placita Olvera, Carmen Gutierrez practiced punching her ballot in a mock polling booth and received information about the state's propositions. Though she has lived in the United States for more than a decade, Gutierrez became a new citizen only in September and registered to vote earlier this month. She said she is eager to vote in the presidential election. "There are a lot of Latinos here," said Gutierrez, who is originally from Mexico.

Two groups of African American ministers held dueling lunchtime news conferences in South Los Angeles on Tuesday to rally support for and against Proposition 8, which would amend the state Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

California Democrats appear poised to expand their control of the Legislature, which could alter the dynamics of the next budget battle, already predicted for next year. Between Sept. 5 and Oct. 15, Democrats registered 215,000 voters, almost twice as many as Republicans, according to county voter registration data. In several Assembly districts held by Republicans, Democrats have nearly closed the gap or even surpassed Republican registration. Democratic gains of even a couple of seats on Nov.