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Browser Points

Internet-accessible resources

for wired Californians

By Dan Pulcrano


Californians can now access a growing mound of digital data about their elected and appointed officials, as well as the agencies and laws that regulate our Californian existences. Some of the stuff is even interesting or meaningful.

The following are a few of the sites that are good starting points. They all link to other sites too numerous to catalog here.

California's Home Page
A fast, well-organized index of information servers with a nifty license plate logo.

Governor Wilson's Home Page
Here you'll find portraits and speeches and his fax number (916/445-4633). You can also discover such gems as the fact that Gayle Wilson serves as spokesperson for a program urging California youngsters to postpone sex.

Other Pete Stuff:

"Wilson Watch"
An excellent Mercury News' compilation of Wilson's broken promises and actions as CEO of the nation's biggest state.

California State Senate
A searchable database of bills and basic information about the 40 senators.

California State Assembly
A hodgepodge of information and poorly scanned graphics that's under construction.

Election Tallies
California Secretary of the State's compilation of election results and party platforms. Contains such nuggets as Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush's ostensible home phone number and how much money he raised ($2,591,389).

Legislative Analysis
The Legislative Analyst's Office crunches fiscal and policy issues and serves up huge downloadable files of information about the state budget and other issues.

Own a Politician:

"Legislature For Sale: How Money Rules Sacramento"
A Pete Carey and Christopher H. Schmitt Merc report

California Campaign Finance Reform Page
An advocacy effort to "decrease the influence of moneyed special interests [on the] political system through public education and legislative reforms."

"The Coin-Operated Congress"
Contains a terrific search engine to see which industries are bankrolling our U.S. congressional representatives. It was put together by Mother Jones magazine and the Center for Responsive Politics to expose what they call "legalized bribery."

Voter Guides:

California Secretary of State Voter Guide

PacBell Voter Guide
Not terribly engaging stuff, but at least trees aren't laying down their lives for it. The PacBell site contains lists of endorsements by the state's big dailies.

UCSC InfoSlug:

Slugdex
A search engine that can help locate information by key words.

Sea Urchin Harvesters Association
Just thought we'd throw this in. Talk about a special interest! A very pretty picture of an urchin graces the home page.

The Jim Warren Gopher
Open government advocate Jim Warren's newsletters. It wasn't accessible, though, when we tried it at press time.

Debra Bowen's Page
Assembly cyberguru Bowen sponsored the bill to put state government info online. She even advertises that her Campaign Finance Disclosure Statement is there. Also contains the text of AB-1624.

California Electronic Government Information (CEGI)
A public-spirited effort by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility to catalog and publicize public online resources--and prod lagging agencies into making their data available online. To track the discussion via email, you can join the mailing list by sending an email message to [email protected] with a blank subject field and a message that reads: subscribe calgovinfo (your name).

Legitech
Please shoot the designer of this awful page, put together by a commercial bill-tracking service. If you want to be assaulted by ugly and annoying graphics that will choke your system to a crawl, plug this address into your browser.

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