Petitions

The fierce fight over same-sex marriage in California and elsewhere is creating pressure to recognize a new free-speech right that could keep petition signatures secret. The Supreme Court voted last week to block release of the names of more than 138,000 people in Washington state who signed petitions seeking to repeal a same-sex domestic partner law in a ballot scheduled for Nov. 3. The Supreme Court's intervention set off a broad debate among election-law experts and 1st Amendment scholars over what is private and what is public when it comes to politics.

California is America's incubator, the place where transforming trends in culture, clothing, commerce and -- unfortunately -- politics often begin. Proposition 13 ignited a national anti-tax fervor; Proposition 187 inflamed anti- immigrant sentiment. Most recently, the state has spawned the tea-party movement's inchoate anger. Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that overturned a California Supreme Court ruling recognizing the fundamental right of gays and lesbians to marry, is one of those rare measures whose impact has cut both ways.

East Los Angeles is proudly known as the community that sparked a Mexican American civil rights movement, gave birth to Los Lobos and jump-started low-rider car culture. But for all its notoriety and close-knit feel, East L.A. has never been a city. Rather, it's an unincorporated area governed by the county Board of Supervisors. But on Friday, the community took a major step toward gaining independence.

Critics of the Capistrano Unified school board said Tuesday that they had collected enough signatures to put a measure on the ballot to oust two trustees. More than 62,000 signatures are on petitions to recall Marlene Draper and Sheila Benecke. The committee needs to submit about 41,000 signatures -- just over 20,000 per trustee -- to the Orange County registrar of voters by Tuesday to hold a recall election. It's the second recall attempt against them since 2005.

When voters were asked to sign petitions for a November initiative to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, they were told the measure would not change state law, which at the time banned same-sex marriage. But then, after the signatures were gathered, the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples were entitled to wed.

On a hot summer night about 10:30, the many men and women living under an elevated section of highway were trying to nod off, swatting the mosquitoes at their ears, shifting their hips uncomfortably on sheets of newspaper and cardboard strewn on the pavement, when someone shouted, "Police!" By the time most could rouse themselves, it was too late. Police had blocked the routes of escape with large buses they would later use to cart away their quarry.

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen rejected on Tuesday a petition submitted by the state prison guards' union for a recall campaign against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, saying it did not meet legal requirements. In a letter to Mike Jimenez, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., an aide to Bowen said the petition, submitted Sept. 29, failed to include the response Schwarzenegger filed nearly two weeks earlier to the union's intention to try to recall him.

Forty-three Democratic legislators, including leaders of the California Senate and Assembly, filed a brief Monday urging the California Supreme Court to void Proposition 8. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and incoming President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg signed the friend of the court brief, filed with the state Supreme Court. No Republican legislator signed the petition, though Gov.

Supporters of a proposed Los Angeles voter initiative that would allow police to arrest illegal-immigrant gang members solely for being in the country illegally said they collected enough petition signatures before Friday's deadline to qualify the measure for the May ballot. The signatures still need to be verified by the Los Angeles city clerk's office, a process that could take up to three weeks.

Proponents of a Los Angeles voter initiative to allow city police to arrest illegal-immigrant gang members just for being in the country illegally failed to gather enough voter signatures to qualify for the May ballot, elections officials said Thursday. Supporters estimated they had turned in more than 76,000 petition signatures before Friday's deadline, but elections officials said they tallied only 18,559 -- far short of the 73,963 signatures required.