Election 2012 Roundup, Monday Jul 23

Barack Obama is at downtown Oakland’s Fox Theater today for one of his many regional fundraisers. The Pres may run smack dab into some protesters unhappy over his administration’s crackdown of medical marijuana dispensaries, including the recently threatened Harborside…

Hard to imagine that the Republican standard bearer Mitt Romney’s heart is in San Francisco…except when it comes to fundraising. Romney was in town Sunday doing just that. The Chron has the full pool report for the Mitt Romney fundraising completionist…

Big battle brewing over Proposition 32, which aims to ban both union and corporate donations to candidates. Not so fast, says Labor, which calls the measure a Trojan Horse due to the exemption of limited liability companies. One clue as to the purpose of the initiative may be its provenance. From the Bay Area News Group today: “The measure was written by a core group of Orange County Republicans who have failed in three statewide campaigns to restrict labor unions’ ability to collect members’ dues for political purposes. This time, they’ve attempted to broaden their appeal by seeking to ban corporate and union donations to candidates and campaigns — in addition to forbidding unions from collecting dues for campaigns.” The League of Women Voters and Common Cause have come out against the measure.

Dianne Feinstein, who helped lead the charge in the 90s for a ban on assault weapons (which expired in 2004), says that the upcoming election makes this a lousy time to take up a subject as incendiary as gun control, even in the wake of the Colorado massacre.

Finally, today we ask: Is Willie Brown (still) the most powerful person in San Francisco?

Public Media for Northern California