Monopoly utilities and oil refineries that want to keep peddling their wares finance ballot measures to mislead voters into postponing the inevitable move away from fossil fuels.
In California the two most heavily financed ballot measures -- the insurance industry's Prop 17 and the PG&E utility monopoly proposal Prop 16 -- both failed, even though neither faced what could be described as a meaningful opposition campaign.
If lavishly financed news organizations and campaigns can't avoid margins of error in their pre-election polls, why expect the cash-starved, publicly financed ballot-counting process to be error-free?
(Two other states, Arizona and Maine, approved public financing through ballot measures, and not legislative votes, as did Connecticut, and they do not ban the same kinds of contributions).
Prosecutors have said the mayor contributed more than $1 million to the party only because Mr. Haggerty promised to use the money to finance the ballot security operation.
Still, legislators failed to reform the campaign finance and ballot systems, revamp the antiquated Rockefeller drug laws and restructure the state courts.
The best bet for New Yorkers is to demand an honest mapmaking commission, campaign finance reform, ballot access reform, ethics reform and reforming the house rules.
A15 SCIENCE/HEALTH Chief Named to Stem Cell Board Amid criticism, the developer who helped to write and finance a ballot initiative to create a California stem cell institute was elected chairman of the enterprise.
Mr. Juntikka, a bankruptcy lawyer from Manhattan known for taking up political causes, and his students have engaged in guerrilla tactics against 27 Democratic and Republican legislators who they say did not support recent proposals to overhaul laws on campaign finance, lobbying, ballot access and the budget.
After several attempts by Big Pharmacy failed to convince the legislature to repeal the Pharmacy Ownership Law, Wal Mart spent $9.3 million to finance a ballot initiative.
