The San Francisco Young Democrats held a public forum on October 14, 2009, on proposals to write a new Constitution for California. The meeting was chaired by California Assemblymember Fiona Ma, who asked the panel to comment on the “top-two” ballot measure that will be on the California ballot in June, 2010. Here is a link to a Youtube for that part of the program. It lasts six minutes and 18 seconds.

Speaking moderately in favor of “top-two” was Matt Regan, Director of Government Relations, Bay Area Council. Speaking against it are Blair Bobier of the New America Foundation, and Robert Cruikshank, Public Policy Director of the Courage Campaign. Thanks to Blair Bobier for the link.

One of the problems with public discussion of the California issue is that people in favor of the measure generally refer to it as the “open primary”, whereas opponents refuse to use that label, because in traditional political science usage, and in past U.S. Supreme Court decisions, “open primary” means a system in which each party has its own primary, whereas under “top-two”, there are no party nominees.

On November 20, California elections officials announced that the petition to recall Assemblymember Anthony Adams does not have enough valid signatures. The petition needed 35,825 valid signatures (12% of the vote cast in the district for Governor in 2006). Although recall proponents submitted 58,384, a random sample shows that only 24,579 signatures are valid, a validity rate of only 42.1%.

The recall effort was launched by a group that was angry at Adams for voting for certain tax increases earlier this year. Adams is a Republican representing the 59th district, which is mostly in San Bernardino County, and partly in Los Angeles County.

On November 13, a South Dakota Circuit Court Judge ruled that petition signatures are valid if the signer is not on the list of active registered voters, but is on the list of inactive voters. Inactive voters are those who once registered to vote, but whose registration is considered questionable because the post office reported that the voter had moved and that voter has not re-registered. The judge, Kathleen Trandahl, also ruled that petition sheets are valid even if the notary public who notarized that sheet makes errors in his or her notarization statement, such as putting an incorrect date on when the notary’s seal expires. The case is Trucano v Nelson, 32-cv-09-306. See this story.

It is possible the state will appeal. UPDATE: on November 20, the state decided not to appeal. The case arose because the state had rejected a referendum petition. The 2009 session of the legislature had passed a bill to ban smoking in bars and casinos. Opponents of that new law had then submitted a petition to call for a public vote, which will be held in November 2010.