META-INDEX
Written, compiled and maintained by Kim Alexander, Executive Director of the California Voter Foundation.
1996 Primary
Election Server - sponsored by the Secretary of State in conjunction with Digital
Equipment Corp, this site features information on candidates and measures up for
consideration in the 1996 Primary election, including election night results for
California's presidential primary, statewide ballot measures, and congressional,
state Senate and Assembly and senate races, plus links to counties that are offering
online election night results for local contests.
Absentee
Voting Information - courtesy of the California Secretary of State.
American
Association of Retired Persons' Presidential Voters Guide - features questions
and answers with the candidates regarding medicare, social security, tax reform,
long term care, and campaign finance reform.
Allpolitics
- sponsored by Time and CNN, this site is devoted to political news and information.
Almanac
of American Politics - published by the National Journal and featured on PoliticsUSA,
this reference guide provides comprehensive information on the executive and legislative
branches of the federal government, including lots of useful information about California's
congressional members.
Ballot
Initiative Update 1996 - a periodic update from Secretary of State Bill Jones
providing the title, signature requirements, deadline and contact information for
measures currently in circulation and measures already qualified.
California Journal - a monthly magazine
published by Statenet Publications in Sacramento. It is widely read by Capitol insiders,
and is an invaluable source of news on California government and politics. For example,
the March 1996 issue includes district-by-district summaries of each legislative
and congressional race in California, and the 1996 California Roster and Government
Guide, featuring essential contact information about the Legislature and state government.
This magazine is recommended to anyone interested in staying informed on California
political news. Annual subscriptions are $37.95. Call 800-726-4566 to order your
subscription, and/or to purchase the March 1996 issue.
California State
Senate - Want to know how your legislator voted on a bill? Interested in finding
out what kind of legislation they've offered? This site offers complete access to
legislative information. You can search
both Senate and Assembly bills by bill number or keyword (tip: keyword can also be
the author's name).
California Voter
Foundation - features links to all of CVF's major projects, like the 1995 San
Francisco Online Voter Guide and Campaign Finance Database, Your Voices Count, and
the 1994 California Online Voter Guide. Other resources available here include information
on voter registration, political disclosure reform, campaign finance issues and background
on CVF.
Campaign Finance Data from the Secretary of State
- the Secretary of State's Political Reform Division publishes periodic summaries
of campaign financing for legislative
races and ballot measures.
These reports are being being published on the Secretary
of State's homepage.
Campaign
Financing in 1994 California races - this report, entitled "The Great Money
Chase" was written and researched by Kim Alexander and published by California
Common Cause. It explores campaign finance trends in the 1994 California legislative
and statewide races, and features charts that summarize fundraising statistics for
all 100 legislative races and the statewide races held in 1994. If you're looking
for quick and recent campaign finance statistics you will probably find some useful
info in this report.
Campaign
Finance Laws: FEC's Guide to Supporting Federal Candidates - Available through
PoliticsUSA's page, and published by the Federal Elections Commission, this guide
includes an easy-to-read, concise explanation of the federal campaign finance laws
and contribution limits, including instructions on how to file a complaint with the
FEC.
Center
for Public Integrity's "The Buying of the President" - This book, published
by Avon Books in January 1995, names the top ten lifetime patrons of all presidential
candidates. The Center's accompanying web site features several databases of presidential
campaign finance information, as well questions about the candidates' donors that
remain unanswered.
Congressional
Quarterly's American Voter '96 - Congressional Quarterly is one of the country's
premiere sources of non-partisan congressional and political news coverage.
County
Elections Offices Roster - need to know where your polling place is, or where
to send your absentee ballot application? Your county elections office can help answer
these and many more questions.
Democracy
Place - offered by Soundprint Media Center and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts,
the goal of this site is to "empower all of our visitors with a better understanding
of the issues and the tools with which to be heard."
Easy
Reader Voter Guide - published by the Center for Civic Literacy, this guide covers
the Presidential candidates and California ballot measures. Though it's geared toward
adult reading students, many people have found it a helpful, quick guide to ballot
issues.
ELECnet
- an excellent collection of federal, state and local election sites maintained by
Ed Packard at Auburn University in Alabama. If you're trying to locate election resources
in other states, check this site. Ed also manages an email discussion list for election
professionals.
Electionline
- offered by ABC News, Washington Post and Newsweek - provides an "inside the
beltway" view on this year's elections. Be sure to look for Dwight Morris' excellent
campaign finance coverage while visiting.
Elections
Law - here is the entire elections code for California. Any suspected violations
of the election law should be reported to the Fair Political Practices Commission
or your local district attorney.
Electoral
College - "Understanding the Electoral College", by Bill Kimberling
of the Federal Elections Commission, courtesy of PoliticsUSA.
FAIR's
Media Contact List - compiled by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, this list
provides contact info for national news media. Here's how to find out where to send
your comments, criticisms and questions about national news coverage.
Fair Political
Practices Commission - the FPPC is the California agency responsible for enforcing
campaign finance laws. There's not much available at the homepage yet, but hopefully
more will be available soon.
Federal Elections Commission
- this site offers campaign finance information for Presidential and congressional
candidates, along with lots of helpful charts and graphs.
The Gate - The
San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner are both available from this
site. Both papers offer a free search service that allows you to search several years
of back issues by keyword. You can also view entire previous editions. A great place
to do political research!
Judicial
Branch of California Government - from the California State Homepage (a site
designed by the State Librarian and maintained by the Teale Data Center.
Kids Voting
- promotes voter education in classrooms by developing special curriculum and holding
mock elections. Kids Voting
Silicon Valley has been active since 1992, and helps form new Kids Voting chapters
in California. Kids Voting offers many volunteer opportunities for concerned citizens
interested in helping children understand and appreciate the election process.
League of
Women Voters of California are now on the web! The League plans to make their
"Pros and Cons" on the state ballot measures available on the Internet
by March 10, 1996.
Legislative
District Search - If you're not sure which State Senate or Assembly district
you live in, you can use this zip code search to find out - also provides biographies
and contact information for your representatives.
Maps
- State Senate districts - the State Senate has done a terrific service by providing
these maps on the Internet - hopefully the Congressional and Assembly maps will be
online soon as well.
Mercury Center
- This site, offered by the San Jose Mercury News, features most of the daily paper
in a well-designed layout with pull-down menus that help you navigate to different
sections of the paper. Subscribers ($4.95 per month) get access to the full text
of the Mercury News and wire stories, plus access to the Merc's library.
Mojo
Wire's PAC database - Mother Jones magazine has collaborated with the Center
for Responsive Politics to provide this excellent database. Here you can look up
PAC contributions to members of Congress, and find out how much they received from
each of the 15 industrial sectors that the CRP uses to classify donors.
"Morning
Report" - this summary of news and editorials from California's major newspapers
is prepared daily by the Senate Republicans' legislative staff - a resource that
is one of the true gems of the web!
National
Political Index - a giant links site offering links to thousands of political
web sites.
NPR's
Election Project - National Public Radio has put together a special site dedicated
to the 1996 election.
News Organizations Online
Original Legislation - Many state ballot measures
are initiatives that qualify for the ballot through petition of the voters. Others
originate as legislation considered and passed by the State Legislature. Here are
links to the bill folders for measures that originated as legislation:
PBS' Citizen
'96 - this site is part of PBS' Democracy Project, a huge undertaking that includes
special broadcasts of public forums.
Political Parties in California - California has
eight qualified political parties:
PoliticsUSA
- this site, sponsored by the National Journal (a subsidiary of the Times Mirror
Co.) and American Political Network, publisher of four electronic news digests, including
Hotline, a must-read for "inside the beltway" folks. This site is one of
the best national election sites available on the web.
Project Vote
Smart - these folks have created the Vote Smart Web, which offers voting records
for congressional incumbents, campaign finance data from the Center for Responsive
Politics, ratings by a wide variety of interest groups, and the results of their
very thorough National Political Awareness Test.
The Sacramento
Bee - is making its editorial positions on state ballot measures available on
the web. This site also features a well-organized collection of news stories about
local legislative and congressional races, and state ballot measures.
The
Reporter (Vacaville/Solano County) - has a special collection of stories relating
to the March primary on their web site, including articles about local races.
Republican National Convention - San
Diego Union Tribune's Republican National Convention page includes a good collection
of presidential campaign news stories plus some really helpful Q&A's with the
candidates.
Rock the Vote
- a non-partisan organization geared toward educating and