Propositions

A ballot measure proposing to change the way California secretary of state campaigns are financed cannot be described by opponents in the voter manual as a move that will "raise your taxes" -- because for the general public, it won't, a Sacramento judge ruled Monday. Settling a challenge to the measure's description at the eleventh hour -- the voter guide printing deadline was 5 p.m. Monday -- Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley struck the wording from the argument against Proposition 15. Major lobbying groups filed suit against the measure last year, contending that the plan to collect a $350 annual fee from lobbyists and their employers to finance the 2014 and 2018 campaigns for secretary of state would constitute a new tax. In arguments against the measure to be included in the voter guide, the opponents mentioned its potential effect on taxes and taxpayers 23 times.

SACRAMENTO - Cigarette makers have a certified history of deception, distortion and lying. And let's not forget fraud and racketeering. Those aren't my words. Credit U.S. District Judge Gladys E. Kessler of Washington, D.C. She wrote in a landmark 2006 ruling that for more than 50 years the tobacco industry had "lied, misrepresented, and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as 'replacement smokers,' about the devastating health effects of smoking.

After reading through the wording of the propositions, considering the advice given by The Times and many television commercials, it is evident that all of them are badly and incompletely written. This sums up to one conclusion--vote no on all of them! MARVIN S. LUNTZ Los Angeles

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.

There are nine statewide propositions on the ballot that cover a range of subjects, including car fees, global warming and marijuana use: Proposition 19 ? Marijuana What it would do: Make it legal to use marijuana in California. Supporters say regulating and taxing the sale of marijuana would help raise money for cash-strapped local governments and save tens of millions of dollars per year on the costs of jailing and supervising marijuana offenders. As with alcohol, the legal age for buying marijuana would be 21, and it would still be illegal to drive under the influence.

Cartoonists sift through mountains of information, mine the deepest layers of the mediasphere, seeking to strike that one golden nugget of truth and then extract it and amalgamate it into irony. Pat Oliphant used the headline-grabbing Chilean rescue to undercut underhanded underground business. In a lighter vein, Matt Davies blasted the cast of caricatures hoping to be elected this fall. And Jeff Koterba's undersized rescue vehicle conveys a metaphorical message that doesn't augur well for financial markets.

There is no way the average voter can assess the financial impact of the various propositions included on the Nov. 7 ballot. Also, one cannot believe the TV ads by both sides of a proposition. I suggest voters do as I am and vote no (except for Prop. A) on all propositions. Maybe such actions would stop voters having to rely on silly ads for information and save the exorbitant ad dollars, which could be used for helping the poor and homeless. WILLIAM H. DUDLEY Encino

WASHINGTON -- Few strategists watch American politics with greater sophistication than Peter D. Hart. In addition to his work for Democratic candidates, the Washington-based pollster has been conducting opinion surveys for NBC News and the Wall Street Journal since 1989. He's one of the rare individuals in politics whose judgment is respected by insiders in both parties. So, when he has something to say, he's well worth paying attention to. Hart has just sent out his preview of the 2012 election, now less than six months away.

No matter how you feel about Meg Whitman, head of Hewlett-Packard, former head of eBay, you'd have to concede that one of her biggest contributions to the California economy was as candidate for California governor. She lavished about $160 million on her failed campaign, and we'd have to guess that most or all of that was spent within the state. It might be hard to get the engine of California's economy revving again, but we do get a good, if short-term, cough out of political campaigns, and the most recent proof of this is the spending on Proposition 29, the initiative that would impose an extra dollar-per-pack tax on cigarettes and use most of the proceeds on medical research for cancer and cardiovascular and lung diseases.

Economists generally don't go into politics, which is probably a good thing for Christopher Thornberg , who has declared war on Proposition 13 . The popular 1978 ballot measure that capped property taxes in California is “one of the most horrendous, unfair, regressive taxes in the history of the United States,” the former UCLA economist declared at a televised hearing in Sacramento earlier this month. (You can view it here , starting at about 31:36 minutes.) Zap!

The New York Rangers' success has been the big story in the East, and rightfully so. The Philadelphia Flyers draw attention thanks to quirky goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov , who can be riveting or terrifying. And most hockey observers have narrowed the most-valuable-player contenders to Flyers winger Claude Giroux , Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist and Pittsburgh Penguins center Evgeni Malkin . In the meantime, another East team has been positioning itself for a strong playoff run. The defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins, almost written off after a 3-7 start and later plagued by inconsistency, have quietly won four of five games and solidified their hold on the No. 2 seeding.

An initiative on the June ballot to alter California's term limits law has support from a narrow majority of registered voters, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. Proposition 28, which would shave two years off the 14 years legislators are allowed to serve in Sacramento but permit them to spend all of the remaining 12 years in one legislative house, is favored by 51% of voters. The survey found that 32% oppose it and the remainder are undecided. Currently, lawmakers are limited to six years in the Assembly and eight in the state Senate under a law passed by voters in 1990.

Just weeks before the deadline for state ballot initiatives, the effort to put a marijuana legalization measure before voters in the general election is in disarray as the federal government cracks down on medical cannabis and activists are divided on their goals. After Proposition 19 received 46% of the vote in 2010, proponents took heart at the near-miss. They held meetings in Berkeley and Los Angeles and vowed to put a well-funded measure to fully legalize marijuana on the 2012 ballot, when the presidential election would presumably draw more young voters.

Reporting from Sacramento -- The proposal is simple: Raise taxes on cigarettes to pay for cancer research. The push for it is quintessentially Californian, melding celebrity salesmanship and the whims of state voters, who have increasingly been called on to decide key policy questions. The pitchman for Proposition 29, which will appear on the June ballot, is seven-time Tour de France champion and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, who is asking voters to increase taxes on a pack of cigarettes by $1. On Wednesday, he announced a $1.5 million contribution from his Texas-based foundation to the Yes on 29 campaign.

Prop. 8's legal future Re "Same-sex marriage fight may hinge on 1 justice," Feb. 9 The Times' excellent analysis of a likely Supreme Court hearing on Proposition 8 omits one factor that might alter the bench's usual conservative-liberal split: the role of Theodore Olson. As an influential member of the Federalist Society, his argument that marriage equality is fully consistent with conservative values may lead one or two of the group's members on the Supreme Court (perhapsJohn G. Roberts Jr.andSamuel A. Alito Jr.)