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Election reform continues to make both progress and news.

In the California legislature, two important bills have survived hurdles and advanced further. The ¹ú²úÊÓƵ-inspired AB 30, which would lower the voter registration age to 16, and now makes its way to the Senate. , a bill that would establish a statewide Instant Runoff Voting pilot program, was approved by the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee and now goes to the floor of the Assembly.

Momentum continues to build for a Constitutional Convention, and ¹ú²úÊÓƵ’s calls for proportional representation are getting attention-even in the unlikeliest of places. In a , the LA Times jumped on the Constitutional Convention bandwagon and claimed that the Bay Area Council has put proportional representation at the top of their wish list. While one would hope that that is true, what is more likely is that the Times is projecting ¹ú²úÊÓƵ’s support for proportional representation onto the Bay Area Council. The confusion is somewhat understandable since both organizations have been involved in public discussions about the need for political reform; both sponsored the Summit to explore the idea of a Constitutional Convention back in February, and representatives from both organizations appeared together at a post-election press conference. Hopefully, though, the Bay Area Council will embrace ¹ú²úÊÓƵ’s call for proportional representation as a much more democratic way of electing our representatives.

It is quite likely that the Times picked up the proportional representation idea from the ¹ú²úÊÓƵ issued after the election or from the ¹ú²úÊÓƵ has offered for redesigning California’s dysfunctional legislature. The latter has been the subject of much interest lately, ranging from a in the current San Francisco Bay Guardian to a Seattle-based from noted author and board member Krist Novoselic. (Noveselic also played bass in the short-lived and influential band Nirvana). The authors of the ¹ú²úÊÓƵ proposal, Mark Paul and Micah Weinberg, will deliver the keynote address tomorrow at the annual meeting of .