Jun 22, 2007 We have the recall petitions for Judge Gibson Lee ready to go (cleared by the Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder) and are having a kickoff signature gathering on Jun 23, 2007 in Long Beach.

April 29, 2007, Added recommendations for the Long Beach special election, go to the Long Beach 2007 button.  This is to coincide with sending out emails for the special election.

April 19, 2007, We have served papers on Judge Lee, the Superior Court Judge who ignored the recommendations of the Los Angeles County Probation Department to release the 10 of the perpetrators of the Halloween Hate Crime in Bixby Knolls, Long Beach.  To read the article in the Press-Telegram go to this link Judge is served papers.

We have been busy the last few months preparing the way for the recall and working to get Nancy Long elected to Signal Hill City Council .  Nancy Long won on election day, but after counting provisional ballots Nancy ended up behind the sitting Mayor by one vote.  We are working to gain access to the provisional ballot envelopes to ensure these folks had a right to vote, only residents of Signal Hill that are citizens not convicted of a felony can vote.

Do you wonder which judges and ballot measures to vote for?

If you think Judges are a non-partisan office, you would be technically correct.  But in reality, as attested to by rulings of the 9^th Circuit Court, we have judges trying to write the law from the bench.  A lot of these judges worked their way up through California Courts.  

Government for the People is a general purpose county committee which was founded in response to requests we received for information and recommendations on the judicial candidates and the ballot measures when I ran for State Senate. 

Our Mission:

Get information out to the Voters.

Find and Support Candidates that will work for the Citizens of Los Angeles County.

Support or oppose all propositions, referendums, and ballot measures; in the best interests of the Citizens of Los Angeles County.

What we have accomplished? 

We have built our base of support and contacts for our efforts on the L.A. County Superior Court.

In the June 2006 elections, we were credited with helping two candidates to win outright in the primary and with helping four candidates reach the runoff.

The Honorable Judy Meyer: 

"You were instrumental in helping me!  Thank you so very much."

The Honorable Dan Lowenthal:

"Thank you for your note and for your support. It truly takes a "big" person to put partisanship aside, and support somebody based solely on qualification."

Bob Henry:

"Thank you for the assistance that you have provided and let's keep on trying to bring back Government TO the People."

We have reached the point at which candidates are searching us out to speak with us, so that is a great indication of how effective we are at getting the word out.

In the 2006 general election, we were three of four on superior court judges.  Some groups that typically go with my recommendations were led astray in one of the races.

It is going to take a lot of work to start to be able to turn out some of the appelate judges, so we will continue to build to be able to make that happen.

What are we doing? 

We continue to do database work, talking to community groups, and civic leaders to build more contacts for the November 2006 election.  Each election is vital to the future direction of California.  We must continue to seize the opportunity to change the way Government operates in L.A. County and California.

We will also be working hard to prevent what happened to the only candidate that lost even with our support.  Dzintra Janavs an "Exceptionally Well Qualified" incumbent lost to Lynn Olsen who is rated "Not Qualified".  Lynn won due to what in our opinion was a deceptive campaign and deceptive language on slate mailers (see below), she also outspent us at a ratio of nearly a 1,000 to 1.  The Honorable Dzintra Janavs was re-appointed by the Governor, but will be up for election again in 2008.

For future elections, we will be searching for good judicial candidates and we will be providing free assistance to guide the candidates that we recommend through the process.  This will entail additional costs, so please send donations if you are able.

Miscellaneous Notes

We are overjoyed and yet concerned that everyone we are contacting via emails and direct mail with recommendations are no longer going to the website for additional details.  When we put a link directly to our judicial page without putting the candidates in an email, we had over 160,000 page views.  We would prefer for everyone to obtain additional information, although we are honored by the vote of confidence.

Slate Mailers are a paid advertisement that candidates buy their way onto.  Slate Mailers typically pretend to represent one party or point of view, but for the Non Partisan Offices (judges, city council, etc.), the person buying their way onto a the mailer may have the exact opposite position of what the mailer portrays.  Slate mailers come down to who is willing to pay so please ignore them unless you check out the organization that is putting them out.  Slate Mailers are effective, but as indicated by a "Not Qualified" candidate winning over an "Exceptionally Well Qualified" candidate, they yield results for whoever spends the most money and do not represent the best candidate.

In service to California,

Michael A. Jackson

President of Government for the People

MJ@GovernmentforthePeople.US

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Government for the People

P.O. Box 8609

Long Beach, CA 90808-0609

CA FPPC # 1264355