What interest groups are on record or will likely support or oppose the initiative? Who might be the winners and losers if it comes about?

Paper Assignment details.
You will write a 6 page memo / paper advising a member of the California Assembly about whether he or she should take an official position on one of the following:
1) An initiative approved for the ballot in 2020: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/qualified-ballot-measures/
2) An initiative cleared for circulation (https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/initiative-and-referendum-status/) or pending review at the Attorney General’s office.
3) Any one of the constitutional amendments proposed by members of the California legislature (in the Assembly, these are measures that begin ACA; in the Senate these are measures that begin SCA) in the current session (2019-20). These include many interesting ideas, such as creating a right to housing, a nonpartisan state legislature, adding nuclear energy to the state’s renewable energy programs, and lowering the vote requirement for tax measures supporting education. To see a complete listing, use the search page under bill information to pull up all bills for the 2019-20 session and scroll down the lengthy list of Assembly and Senate bills (alphabetic by bill number) (http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/) You can download the text of any of these bills by selecting the appropriate link.
You want to tell this Assemblymember why supporting or opposing the initiative will be good for his or her political career. The trick to this paper is to use primary sources to find relevant data and tie together the information using ideas from this course and your own political smarts. Please be sure to provide citations – either through footnotes or endnotes – to show us where you got your information.
Who is the audience of your memo? You are an aide to a California Assemblymember, writing directly to him or her. Your boss must be a current member of the Assembly who is expected to seek election in 2018 either to his/her same office or to another office.
Which initiatives can he or she endorse or oppose? You need to either: 1) choose ONE of the ballot measures approved for the ballot in 2020, OR 2) choose ONE of the initiative proposals cleared by the Secretary of State for circulation, OR 3) choose ONE of the constitutional amendment proposals offered by members of the California Assembly and Senate.
What should your memo include? To help make your argument that taking this position on the initiative will help your boss’s political career or result in large benefits for the district he or she represents, please include:
· What is your boss’s political and personal history? How much did he or she win by in the 2018 election, and what office is he or she running for in 2020? What sorts of interest groups or individuals contributed large amounts of money to his or her campaign? What types of programs, causes has he or she advocated in the past?
· What is the geographic, ethnic and political profile of the district? Provide information on where the district is located, what sorts of areas it covers, and its racial / ethnic breakdown. Using the Secretary of State’s reports, tell us what party its voters register with and how the district voted on past initiatives that address similar policy issues? (You will want to focus on initiatives since 2012, when today’s districts came into effect.) Or, use polling information from the Field Poll or PPIC to find opinions on related policy questions by voters who share the partisan or ethnic background of voters in your Assemblymember’s district. Relate relevant district characteristics to the initiative.
· Briefly, how would the new policy or reform that you chose change the status quo? What effects would it likely have on the district or state? How does the proposed initiative address a current policy issue or collective action problem?
· What interest groups are on record or will likely support or oppose the initiative? Who might be the winners and losers if it comes about? Which of these groups are tied to your boss? (Online resources, such as Ballotpedia, often report the formal positions taken by groups for each initiative. The Fair Political Practices Commission posts information about the top donors to campaigns to pass or defeat particular initiatives.)

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