California conservatives turn to voters for change

California conservatives, stifled by the Democratic majority in the Capitol, are turning to the people in hopes of advancing their stalled agenda in 2008.

Four conservative-backed ballot campaigns, including one to etch a ban on gay marriage into the state constitution, have amassed $8.9 million to put measures before voters in November.

The other measures would require minors to notify a guardian before obtaining an abortion, stiffen anti-gang statutes and expand crime victims' rights.

Many Republican activists have resigned themselves to minority status in the Legislature, where Democrats control at least 60 percent of the seats in both the Senate and Assembly.

But they see hope at the ballot box.

"The reality is they do stand a chance with the voters, and they don't stand a chance in the Legislature," said Mark Baldassare, president of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Or, as Assemblyman Todd Spitzer put it, "We weren't going to waste our time in the Legislature."

The Orange County Republican is working on the campaign to enhance the rights of crime victims during criminal and parole proceedings. Billionaire Henry Nicholas donated $4.8 million to the measure, named "Marsy's Law" after Nicholas' sister, who was murdered in 1983.

None of the four measures has qualified for the ballot, though proponents of each have raised more than $1 million and say they are confident of collecting enough valid signatures.

"Law now is being made by the public at large in California," said Don Sebastiani, a Sonoma wine magnate and former GOP lawmaker who gave $505,000 to the abortion-notification measure.

Democrats and their allies have pushed ballot measures as well, ranging from a successful 2004 measure that raised taxes on millionaires for mental health services to legalizing medical marijuana.

Bill Carrick, a veteran Democratic strategist who has worked on ballot campaigns, said the two parties approach the initiative process differently. Republicans, he said, are trying "to come up with a magic-bullet initiative to change the politics of California."

"They are stuck in a rut as a minority party," Carrick said. "They don't have a majority in either house of the Legislature and are a significant minority in California's congressional delegation. We have two Democratic senators and a governor who very often sides with the Democrats."

Incoming Senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto said it is "unfortunate" that Republicans "have to revert to the initiative process."

"I don't think it's the preferred choice for either the legislators or the people they represent," Cogdill said. "They expect us to be here to do the job and be a functional body and the reality is we're not."

Democrats have controlled the Legislature – except the Assembly briefly in the mid-1990s – for nearly four decades. But, at the same time, the state's voters have shown a penchant to side with Republicans on social and law-and-order issues, when given the chance.

California voters have largely banned bilingual education, implemented a "three strikes" sentencing law and favored cutting services to illegal immigrants, among other measures.

Most recently, voters in 2006 approved Jessica's Law, which bans convicted sex offenders from living near parks and schools and requires global positioning system locators on sex offender parolees. The measure was the brainchild of the husband-and-wife tandem of Sen. George Runner and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner.

The Lancaster Republicans are back again this year, now pushing a measure that would stiffen penalties for gun-crime accomplices, add prison time for convicted felons who carry guns in public and spend hundreds of millions more on local law enforcement programs.

The initiative includes parts of 16 bills defeated in the Legislature in recent years, according to the campaign.

The problem for law-and-order Republicans in the Capitol, said George Runner, is that their ideas – even those with potential widespread appeal – rarely, if ever, become law.

About the writer:

• Call Shane Goldmacher, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5544.