Voting Fights

Los Angeles County officials, contending that there is no way to draw supervisorial districts that would enhance political representation for Latinos, say they have embarked on an all-out campaign to fight a Justice Department voting rights lawsuit. The county's resistance to federal demands for redistricting prompted a strong protest from Latino groups who likened the county's attitude to that of Southern politicians who fought voting rights reforms in the 1960s.

The intersection of politics and religion can sometimes resemble one of those spaghetti freeway interchanges. Cars go in and cars go out, but not always in ways you might expect. Take the recent case of the fight between President Obama and the nation's Roman Catholic bishops. A new poll has found that Catholics who are familiar with the issue tend to side overwhelmingly with the bishops. That is, they agree that the Obama administration is threatening their religious liberty by mandating that some church-affiliated institutions, such as schools and hospitals, provide free contraceptive services to their employees, in violation of church teachings.

Rick McIntyre, the Republican candidate for Indiana's 8th District congressional seat, has dropped his federal lawsuit against the U.S. House, filed after it refused to seat him in January, an adviser said Thursday. McIntyre originally was certified by state officials as the winner by 34 votes, but House Democrats held the seat vacant until a federal recount, which showed that Democratic incumbent Frank McCloskey had won by four votes.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi squeaked through a vote of no confidence in his government Tuesday, surviving one of the toughest tests of his leadership but emerging with his power severely weakened. The media magnate, who has led Italy for most of the last decade, secured the barest of majorities in a vote marred by scuffles in the lower house of Parliament. Lawmakers voted 314-311 in favor of the government. Earlier, the Italian Senate gave a thumbs-up to Berlusconi by a comfortable margin.

By taking a tough stance on questions about electronic voting, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has gained a national profile -- and made some enemies among local election officials along the way. Shelley, who halted electronic voting in California in April and ordered counties to comply with a long list of improvements, said in an interview Monday that he was disappointed by the personal nature of some of the criticism.

The nation's largest teachers union voted Sunday to fight the Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork and to challenge efforts to make English the official language of the United States. "Judge Bork is a compulsory pregnancy man . . . too conservative on race, women's rights and reproductive freedom," teacher Jane Stern of Rockville, Md., told the 8,000 National Education Assn. delegates meeting in Los Angeles before they voted overwhelmingly to oppose him.

The intersection of politics and religion can sometimes resemble one of those spaghetti freeway interchanges. Cars go in and cars go out, but not always in ways you might expect. Take the recent case of the fight between President Obama and the nation's Roman Catholic bishops. A new poll has found that Catholics who are familiar with the issue tend to side overwhelmingly with the bishops. That is, they agree that the Obama administration is threatening their religious liberty by mandating that some church-affiliated institutions, such as schools and hospitals, provide free contraceptive services to their employees, in violation of church teachings.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to seek reversal of a court ruling that suspended construction of the half-built San Fernando Valley busway. Last week, a state appellate panel ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to stop work on the 14-mile Orange Line and conduct more analyses of whether a network of rapid buses was a superior alternative.

Rather than leave the litigation solely to county lawyers, a coalition of Ventura County cities agreed Thursday to hire its own attorney to fight a lawsuit over the use of millions of state transit dollars. The Assn. of Ventura County Cities, a low-profile group of elected officials from each of the county's 10 cities, voted unanimously to spend at least $25,000 to wage the upcoming legal battle. "You don't do this to tickle them," Oxnard City Atty. Gary Gillig told the panel.

Trustees for the Orange Unified School District voted unanimously this week to fight a new state law that will allow county government to levy fees on districts for the costs associated with collecting property taxes. The board voted to contribute $4,500 to a legal fund established by the California School Board Assn. that will be used to fund a lawsuit opposing the law. The board's vote follows similar action taken by the Newport-Mesa Unified School District earlier this week.

After a dramatic month of sometimes round-the-clock negotiating and deal-making, Senate Democrats came together Saturday behind sweeping healthcare legislation, providing a powerful boost for President Obama's top domestic policy goal. The breakthrough came after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his lieutenants engineered a delicately crafted compromise to prevent federal funding of abortions, the same issue that nearly stopped the House from passing its healthcare bill six weeks ago. With the deal, Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, a strong opponent of abortion, became the 60th and crucial last member of the Democratic caucus to line up behind the healthcare legislation.

A liberal Pasadena church on Thursday declared that it will refuse to comply with an IRS investigation into its tax-exemption status launched after a guest speaker was critical of President Bush in a sermon. At a news conference attended by 50 cheering supporters gathered before the marble altar at All Saints Episcopal Church, the Rev.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to seek reversal of a court ruling that suspended construction of the half-built San Fernando Valley busway. Last week, a state appellate panel ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to stop work on the 14-mile Orange Line and conduct more analyses of whether a network of rapid buses was a superior alternative.

By taking a tough stance on questions about electronic voting, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has gained a national profile -- and made some enemies among local election officials along the way. Shelley, who halted electronic voting in California in April and ordered counties to comply with a long list of improvements, said in an interview Monday that he was disappointed by the personal nature of some of the criticism.

Employing new political clout, five Los Angeles neighborhood councils have voted to oppose a planned 18% increase in water rates, while a dozen others are scheduled in the next few weeks to take up the matter. The organized campaign of opposition represents the first time the city-sanctioned network of neighborhood councils created by voters in 1999 has weighed in on such a large scale on a proposed rate increase, said City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who was troubled by the opposition.

As the accusations and lawsuits proliferate in Florida, the struggle over last week's election results may have already reached a level that dangerously weakens whoever finally wins the White House, analysts in both parties say. Both Republican nominee George W.