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SACRAMENTO - State mishandling of voter-approved, tax-increase funds for a children's program has pumped powerful, 11th-hour ammunition into close, expensive battles over two similar cigarette and oil-tax boosting measures on Tuesday's ballot. After an audit revealed multimillion-dollar improprieties in the use of Proposition 10 preschool funding, foes of Props. 86 and 87 attacked the two new tax measures Wednesday as creating the same type of bureaucracies -- except with loopholes ripe for exploitation. "The audit confirms what many have been saying all along about tax initiatives creating reckless, out-of-control spending of tax dollars through unaccountable government agencies," said Larry McCarthy,...

Welcome to the live thread for the California Primary Election. Polls are open until 8pm tonight. If you are a registered voter, it is your duty to vote and defend your rights and civil liberties, protect your pocketbook, and vote the bums out where applicable. Feel free to discuss issues key to your local area that others may be interested in. Post your polling place experiences if you like. And post numbers as they come in later tonight.

I stopped to drop off a carton of cigarettes for a disabled veteran at a nursing home. They have a bleak area outside where they can enjoy a cigarette at fixed intervals. He was reading an absentee ballot about Proposition 86. He said, “This is crazy! We can’t afford $70 for a carton of cigarettes. That’s the most prejudiced, hateful proposition I ever read.” Then he asked me, “Can this pass?” I said, “Are you old enough to remember bus segregation, because some people didn’t think some people looked as nice as they did?” He said, “Haven’t we learned...

SACRAMENTO - As seven-figure contributions continue to roll in, momentum has shifted against two high-profile, multimillion-dollar initiatives on Tuesday's ballot, according to a Field Poll released today. Once supportive, likely voters are now evenly split on Proposition 86, which would raise cigarette taxes to fund health programs, and leaning against Proposition 87, which would levy extraction fees on oil companies to pay for research into alternative energy. But the races are still too close to call before Tuesday. In California politics, initiative opponents tend to have a built-in advantage, because voting no preserves the status quo. That edge is only...

After hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign advertising, voters are souring on initiatives that would enact new taxes on oil production and cigarettes, a new Field Poll has found. Californians surveyed last week and early this week were narrowly against Proposition 87, a tax on oil extraction to fund alternative energy. They were evenly split on Proposition 86, another measure on Tuesday's ballot, which would impose a new levy of $2.60 on each pack of cigarettes to pay for an array of health causes. Proposition 87 dropped four points in support from a poll taken at the end of...

Despite endorsements from Bill Clinton and Al Gore, support for Proposition 87, a measure that seeks to tax oil production to fund alternative fuel development, continues to wane, according to the latest Field Poll results to be released today. Both the Democratic former president and vice president in recent weeks have been front and center on behalf of the Yes on 87 campaign, being featured in television advertisements and leading rallies such as the one that Clinton appeared in at San Francisco's civic center on Wednesday. But the latest poll, taken between Oct. 23 and 30, shows 40 percent of...

Monday, October 30, 2006 Prop. 86 a tax-the-poor scheme California focus Hospital industry singles out smokers to enrich itself By MATT SCHUMSKY Real estate developer, state field inspector for freedomworks, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank If passed by the California electorate Nov. 7, Proposition 86 would almost quadruple the current tax on cigarettes to $3.47 a pack and would stand as perhaps the most ill-conceived tax increase of all time, although, to be fair, there's a lot of competition for that distinction. The "Tobacco Tax Act of 2006" is a creation of California's hospital industry, which wrote the initiative in...

CALIFORNIA voters should keep this news from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office in mind when they vote in November: State operating budget shortfalls under the spending plan are expected to reach "nearly $4 billion in 2007-08 and nearly $5 billion in 2008-09." Then voters should reject Propositions 86, 87 and 88, because the three measures would raise taxes without fixing the structural shortfall. Good-government types call measures such as these "ballot-box budgeting" -- special interests cook up initiatives designed to appeal to voters because they dedicate spending to a pet cause. Voters believe that in approving these measures, they ensure...

Reading all the specific earmarks of funds in Proposition 84 set our suspicious journalistic minds to wondering: There are so many organizations slated to get money from this $5.4 billion bond measure, sold as being for water quality and water supply, that it began to look like a cynical "pay to play" initiative, in which those who paid to get the initiative on the ballot get much larger sums to spend once the bonds are sold. Remember "pay to play?" The Planning and Conservation League perfected this technique with 1996's Proposition 204. While writing the ballot measure it sought donations...

Cigarette, energy initiatives still ahead as TV ads kick in. A statewide television blitz appears to be working in favor of oil and tobacco interests, as a Field Poll released Tuesday shows support dropping for two tax measures they oppose on the Nov. 7 ballot.Proposition 86, which would impose a $2.60-per-pack cigarette tax, enjoyed a 2-1 lead in July. But the gap narrowed in the new survey, conducted Sept. 14-24: 53 percent of likely voters were in support, compared with 40 percent opposed.Proposition 87's double-digit lead shrank considerably, as well. The alternative energy tax initiative's 52 percent to 31 percent...

The cast of characters at Monday's press conference was unusual, to say the least. The participants represented each of the major factions in last year's special election: the drug companies, big-business Schwarzenegger allies and unions. But this time they were all on the same side. They all opposed Proposition 89, which would create publicly financed campaigns in California. "It's a murderers' row of political spenders in California," says Common Cause's Ned Wigglesworth, who supports Proposition 89. If, as the saying goes, politics makes for strange bedfellows, then California's 2006 elections are one giant slumber party. Held in the twelfth-floor suite...

Public works bonds flounder Big spenders, other woes threaten support for infrastructure SACRAMENTO — Public-works bond supporters fear they won't have the cash to sell voters on costly infrastructure improvements because monied oil and tobacco firms fighting propositions are inflating the political television ad market. At the same time, other problems are piling up — uneven support based on regional concerns, awkward politics, the sheer size of the multibillion-dollar bond total, and disclosures that much of the money for transportation would not go directly to easing traffic congestion. "It's going to be difficult to have a voice to be heard...

California is poised to enact the largest one-time cigarette tax hike ever -- adding $2.60 per pack -- on top of an already existing 87 cent excise tax, bringing the average price for a pack of cigarettes to $6.55, says Nanette Byrnes in BusinessWeek. The new measure is particularly worrisome for tobacco companies because of California's large share of the tobacco market; the state is home to 9 percent of all U.S. smokers. In addition, cigarette makers argue that the tax is unfair, and an irresponsible spending of the public's money: ** The measure does not require that all tax...

September 11, 2006 Raising the Cigarette Tax is Bad Policy California Prop. 86 Should Be Defeated By: Matt Schumsky In less than two months, Californians will vote on a new $2.60 per pack tax on cigarettes. The new tobacco tax would bring the total cigarette tax to $3.47 a pack. The ballot measure to increase taxes by more than 250 percent is called Proposition 86, or the Tobacco Tax Act. According to California’s non-partisan Legislative Analyst, the total revenue from the Tobacco Tax Act of 2006 could be up to $2.1 billion. What will happen to this new revenue? The...

Sides square off in fight to hike tax on tobacco Critics predict increase in crime, eventual drying up of revenue Come November, Californians will be asked to impose the biggest tax increase ever on tobacco products, a change that healthcare advocates believe will reduce cigarette consumption, but some officials think will increase cigarette smuggling. The organizations supporting Proposition 86 — the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and a consortium of healthcare advocates — say the higher taxes will reduce smoking, and research from the California Department of Health Services backs them up. According to the department, California's adult smoking...

SACRAMENTO - A new statewide poll released today shows that voters are more than willing to make life tougher for sex offenders, smokers and oil company executives. More than three-fourths of voters -- 76 percent to 11 percent -- support Proposition 83, or Jessica's Law, according to Field Poll surveys on five of the 13 measures on the November ballot. The measure would lengthen sentences for sex offenders and require lifetime global positioning system monitoring "It would be hard to beat back," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. "I don't see a big 'no' side that would need...

General Election - November 7, 2006 Prop. 1A Transportation Funding Protection: YES! For years, the Legislature has raided our highway taxes for general fund spending. Though it’s more window dressing than relief, this measure makes it marginally harder to do so. Prop. 1B Transportation Bond: NO! Although some of this money is for long overdue road construction, most goes for equipment, maintenance and social programs that will be obsolete decades before our children have finished paying off the debt. Californians pay the third highest tax per gallon of gasoline in the country – and yet we rank 43rd in per...