Legal Research

Ziefbrief is non-partisan; we will be blogging no matter who wins the election next week. But Ziefbrief wants to make sure that everybody who does vote has all the information available  to make an informed decision. Along those lines we refer anybody who is inclined to exercise their franchise to the following sites:

California Ballot Endorsements: November 4, 2008 General Election (click link to open in new window.)

This handy tool from the folks at the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) Library at UC Berkeley provides a table showing which paper, party or organization is endorsing which of the raft of current ballot propositions. Each proposition is linked to in-depth analysis through the Library's Hot Topic pages.

The National Conference of State Legislatures Ballot Measure Database (click link to open in new window.)

The NCSL is a bipartisan organization founded in 1975 "with the conviction that legislative service is one of democracy's worthiest pursuits". This web page lists ballot measures for each state, going back in some cases to the early 1900's. The search engine allows you to limit by state, topic, year and search by key word.

(both of these useful web sites were brought to our attention by the excellent Librarians' Internet Index.)