GOOD Voter Guide to California

It’s crazy midterm election season, and this year is a doozy—especially here in California. This guide tries to make sense of the majority of state-wide races here, which include model/actress tea party members, socialists (real ones), a Columbine victim, career politicians, evil plots by oil companies, and the potential legalization of marijuana.

Over the course of the next two weeks, we will be publishing primers about the important items on the ballot in California, and linking the pages below. Bookmark this page and come back for daily updates. Here's the schedule:

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Tuesday 10/19: Propositions
Wednesday 10/20: Governor
Thursday 10/21: Senate
Friday 10/22: Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer
Saturday 10/23: Controller, Lieutenant Governor
Sunday 10/24: Insurance Commissioner, House of Representatives
Monday 10/25: Printable cheat-sheet and PDF

We’ve made some recommendations for you in the state propositions, and for the candidates we’ve tried to provide as much info as we could about how these folks stand on issues like the environment, education, health care, civil rights—the stuff you care about. We trust you to make the decision from there.

Some disclaimers: This guide is a volunteer operation, not produced by GOOD. Due to research fatigue, lame candidate websites, and Murphy's Law, you may spot a mistake or two. Some candidates simply don’t provide a lot of info, and our researcher styles varied, so some profiles may differ or seem a bit incomplete.

Also, our crew is mainly based in southern California, so that’s what we focused on. And we didn’t get to all the races, but tried to cover the most important ones.

The guide was compiled using public sources, including government and candidate websites. Its accuracy is contingent on those sources at the time of publication (October 13, 2010).

Remember, what happens in our backyards matters, and this election has some high stakes, so please email your people and pass this guide along. We hope you find it informative, helpful, and that it will occasionally make you chuckle.

Happy Voting.

Your Volunteers,

Alex Richmond, Alex Shoor, Ali S, Alice Gualpa, Anne Stokes, Annie Lainer, Brendan Piper, Chuck Bergman, Emma Campbell Webster, Erika Backberg, Jason McDaniel, Jesse Federman, Jessey White Cinis, Jim Gilliam, Jonathan J, Kabira Stokes Hochberg, Kelly R, Kevin DeGood, Linda Bergman, Marguerite Moreau, Michael Kostyo, Nicholas Stankevich, Rajal Pitroda, Robin Petering, Spencer Schulman, and Stan O.