Initiatives

Proponents of a ballot measure to restrict ballot measures call it a financial necessity. Opponents say it would be a near-crippling blow to a form of direct democracy that Arizona has used since statehood. Under the proposition on the Nov. 4 ballot, no initiatives that raise taxes or require new spending could take effect unless they're approved by a majority of registered voters. That is a much higher hurdle than the current requirement -- that an initiative get approval from a majority of voters casting ballots.

BOSTON - Recognizing that many viewers want to watch key events live, in prime time, rather than tape-delayed, NBCUniversal plans to bolster its coverage of the Summer Olympics in London in August by putting 3,000 hours of programming online. The company, which is paying a record $1.18 billion for the rights to broadcast the London Olympics, is challenged to keep the up with the times. The long time zone difference between Britain and the U.S. means that key events will be broadcast when most Americans are not in front of their TVs. And increasingly, consumers are watching programming online, prompting NBC to make changes to its playbook.

An initiative to legalize marijuana and allow it to be sold and taxed will appear on the November ballot, state election officials announced Wednesday, triggering what will probably be a much-watched campaign that once again puts California on the forefront of the nation's debate over whether to soften drug laws. The number of valid signatures reported by Los Angeles County, submitted minutes before Wednesday's 5 p.m. deadline, put the measure well beyond the 433,971 it needed to be certified.

At Home on the Range A Cookbook Margaret Yardley Potter with a forward by her great granddaughter Elizabeth Gilbert McSweeney's Books: 256 pp., $24 You've probably never seen the fine art of bread-making broken down quite like this in a recipe: "Now relax. Sit down, light a cigarette, write a letter or make your own plans for the next fifteen minutes while the dough 'tightens up' as we bakers say. "Is your cigarette finished? Let's go. This is fun. " So writes Margaret Yardley Potter in her cookbook "At Home on the Range.

Peter King (column, Oct. 15) correctly asserts that California's most controversial initiatives are emotional responses to state problems. But emotion isn't a good substitute for reasoned legislation, and leaving the courts to sort out the details is expensive, lengthy and unsatisfactory. Let's use initiatives the way they're intended: as a wake-up call to the Legislature to address the problem. Let's change the system so that a passed initiative doesn't become law but goes to the Legislature, which can work with the proposal and perhaps tone down the more extreme (and court-challengeable)

Californians seem to have had it with the underfunding of their schools. With tuition rising every semester to close the gap created by legislative budget cuts, the state's fabled higher education system — the University of California, the California State University and the community colleges — is pricing out tens of thousands of middle-class students. At the K-12 level, the Golden State ranks 42nd among the states in per-pupil spending, and is almost certain to fall even lower if, as seems likely, an additional $10 billion is whacked from state spending.

One day after Ohio voters resoundingly rejected the state's new collective bargaining law, Democrats and their allies in organized labor said Republicans have reason to worry about more fallout to come from that party's overreach. The GOP meanwhile is pointing to results of another initiative on the Ohio ballot, offered by Republicans as a rebuke to President Obama's healthcare reform, as just as powerful a rejection of Democrats. What's the day after election day without a healthy serving of spin?

California Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti's quote, "Typical California. They make decisions pretty much independent of us" in reference to the campaign finance initiatives (Part I, June 9) goes a long way toward explaining why there are so many public-initiated ballot measures. Turn that quote around and have a typical voter's remark, "Typical California elected officials. They make decisions pretty much independent of us." C. TROPILA Fountain Valley

An Arcadia citizens group will turn in an initiative petition that, if it qualifies for the November ballot, would let voters decide whether they should approve any changes to the use of the grounds at Santa Anita Park. The prospective ballot measure comes in the wake of Santa Anita's controversial plan that it recently withdrew for a $100-million entertainment center in the horse racing track's 120-acre parking lot.

Regarding "Touting Initiatives, Eschewing Principles," Golden State, May 26: Since we are all so busy, I am glad that columnist Michael Hiltzik has simplified Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's upcoming initiative campaign by explaining it in one article. The three initiatives are designed to decrease state government spending, shake up an entrenched state Legislature with new redistricting and make teachers more accountable through delayed tenure. This is why we sent Arnold to Sacramento.

Every morning when UC San Diego physicist Herbert Levine laces up his running shoes and chugs alongside Mission Bay, his earphones crackle with radio ads opposing a proposed $1-per-pack cigarette tax to raise money for cancer research. The ads are funded by the tobacco industry. They call Proposition 29, the tobacco tax that state voters will consider on the June 5 ballot, a bureaucratic boondoggle, an initiative that would raise mountains of cash for research but not a penny for treatment.

SAN FRANCISCO — Dressed in his trademark hoodie and jeans, Facebook Inc. co-founder Mark Zuckerberg kicked off a cross-country roadshow to pitch his company's initial public stock offering. Hundreds of institutional investors stood in long lines Monday to pile into a ballroom at New York's Sheraton Hotel to hear the billion-dollar pitch from the 27-year-old chief executive before his company's hotly anticipated IPO. The meeting was closed to the media. Facebook is trying to build excitement for the IPO that in a few weeks could value the company at more than $96 billion.

Dear Liz: After working all out for 28 years in a small business, I have put away $2.6 million in stocks, bonds and some cash. (I am a reasonably smart investor.) I'm 58 and want to be done at 60. I'm not tired of my business, just tired of working. How much do you think I could draw out and not get myself into trouble? I'm in great health, so I could last 30 more years. Our house is paid off, and my wife gets about $40,000 a year from a nice pension. Any ideas? Answer: Financial planners typically recommend an initial withdrawal rate of 3% to 4% of your portfolio.

Nearly 30% of jobless Americans have been out of work for at least a year, according to the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative report on the first quarter. The report found that of the 13.3 million unemployed workers in the country, 3.9 million had been jobless for all or most of 2011. That's more people than live in Oregon. That 29.5% long-term unemployment rate is slightly off the peak reached in the third quarter of last year, when 31.8% of jobless Americans were out of work for a year.

SACRAMENTO — A labor union that pushed a pair of ballot measures that would have reined in excessive hospital billing and expanded healthcare for the poor has dropped them — in exchange for an agreement that enlists the hospital industry in the union's organizing efforts. The agreement, announced late Wednesday, ends a months-long public battle between the Service Employees International Union and the California Hospital Assn. Private hospitals had accused the union of using the initiative process as leverage in contract negotiations to expand its membership, a charge the union strongly denied.

Patricia Medina, a British-born actress whose Hollywood career as a leading lady in the 1950s spanned the talking mule comedy "Francis" and Orson Welles' crime-thriller "Mr. Arkadin," has died. She was 92. Medina, the widow of actor Joseph Cotten, died Saturday at Barlow Respiratory Hospital in Los Angeles, said Meredith Silverbach, a close friend. She had been in declining health. A petite, dark-haired beauty who launched her film career in England in the late 1930s, Medina was married to actor Richard Greene when she arrived in Hollywood after World War II. "She was a stunning woman," said Silverbach.

The deadline passed Thursday for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic lawmakers to strike a deal to avert a fight over initiatives in the Nov. 8 special election. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez said that if the governor and he could reach agreement in the next few days, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson might allow the results to be placed on the ballot. But McPherson said that would be too late.

Re "Cure for the Initiative," editorial, Nov. 5: Prior restraint remedies like constitutionality tests and ballot argument reviews as fixes for the initiative process raise the question of who is going to perform these tests. The existence of neutral parties, even in the judiciary, is a fantasy. The major concern is that any changes would be used to keep initiatives off of the ballot altogether. Most issues dealt with by initiatives would never have been addressed by the state Legislature and would probably have been kept off of the ballot as initiatives if they had a prior-restraint vehicle.

Several high-profile business names, such as San Francisco hedge-fund manager Thomas Steyer and agribusiness magnate Stewart Resnick, have contributed to a proposed ballot measure seeking tighter regulation of health insurance rates, according to campaign finance records. These contributions were among $1.5 million in donations reported Monday to the California Secretary of State by Consumer Watchdog, the Santa Monica group leading the ballot drive. A coalition of insurers, hospitals, doctors and business groups opposing the measure has reported $367,200 in donations.

Soon, anyone who wants to know how much a political candidate spent on a commercial will be able to find out with the click of a button. The Federal Communications Commission voted Friday to require local television stations to publish on their websites detailed information about political advertising, including the cost of specific commercials. Although such material is already required to be made available to the public, anyone seeking to know what candidates are spending, and on what programs, typically has to visit a local television station and make a request to see what's known as the "public files.