>>From:    Lee McKee <[log in to unmask]>
>>Subject: California politics
 
>This is probably a reasonable suggestion.  The California legalization
>efforts have concentrated so much on Republicans to our knowledge that the
>Democrats could see this as a partisan issue.  Approaching candidates of
>both parties and trying for a bi-partisan sponsorship of any legislation
>will almost have to help.
 
(This is actually a response to Bill Killian.)
 
You are correct in that the ferret issue *should* be non-partisan.  That was
made impossible for years because of one individual: Willie Brown.
 
As head of the Assembly for over a decade, he was untouchable in office.  He
brought pork to his home base (San Francisco) and ruled with an iron fist,
controlling the entire flow of Democrat Assembly cash; he was politically
secure enough to take "unpopular" cash directly and redistribute it at will
to other candidates; in this manner, money from Tobacco, logging and other
such industries could finance a race for a guy who could claim to "never
EVER" recieve such tainted funds - he could get them from Willie instead.
 
The first Ferret Legalization bill was authored by Jan Goldsmith, a
Republican from SoCal who was on Willie's "excement list" to such a degree
that Willie decreed that *nothing* with Jan's name on it would ever become
law.
 
The second attempt died in a Senate committee on grounds that "it was F&G's
ballgame by rights" more or less.  I'm still interested in how much pressure
DFG and the commission brought to bear to make that happen - because at
least according to Randy Cristison, that was a mistaken decision.
 
Our Senate is still mostly Democrats; on this and most other "personal
freedom" issues the Assembly has of late been *for* personal freedom (since
the Republican takeover) and the Senate, against.  The assembly voted 60-7
in favor of advising F&G to legalize ferts this summer, but we do *not* have
that kind of support in the Senate.  (Note: the "other issues" include
Medical Pot, Gun Control/Permits, Needle Exchange, etc.)
 
One problem: Pete Wilson the Republican is anti-fert, and this is making the
Commission bolder, if anything.  It's also why doing another run at the
Legislature is extra-difficult.
[Posted in FML issue 1754]