Word: birch
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...Baby Birch,” the sixth track, also demonstrates Newsom’s ability to successfully adapt and transform previously-unexplored styles. Newsom’s voice takes on only the slightest, airy twang so that the song recalls the style of Neko Case. But the track, which approaches ten minutes in length, goes beyond a mere regurgitation of alternative country. Haphazard slips of electric guitar and banjo accent a languid harp—which, in typical Newsom style, she fits perfectly into this country song—and as the song proceeds, dramatic harp and guitar...
Outside a Target store in Orange County, California, Elbie Birch hawks his wares: ballot propositions. "Excuse me, gentlemen, are you registered voters?" Birch, a tall, burly man with a shaved head, goatee and winning smile, is a professional initiative-signature gatherer. In the past year, he has worked on gerrymandering in Florida, a casino issue in Ohio and affordable housing in Massachusetts before coming to California - the undisputed capital of direct democracy - where he is hustling a stack of nine ballot initiatives. Birch gets 50 cents to $1 for every signature he gathers...
...initiative imperative persists. Every five minutes Birch hooks a customer. "My job is to make people aware and to get signatures," says Birch, 44, who earns free board from Professional Petition Consultants if he makes his quota of 1,400 signatures a week. Theresa Williams, 29, is shopping, with 2-year-old Eithan in her cart. Birch approaches her with a measure that would prevent Sacramento from tapping local transportation projects' and municipal governments' coffers to balance the state's chronically unbalanced budget. In quick succession he pitches measures to close a corporate tax loophole, fund the state's parks...
...more new taxes without your approval," says Birch. "They'll need two-thirds to pass it." Birch admits he is not aware that California is the only state in the union where it is necessary to obtain a two-thirds majority in the legislature to pass a budget and initiate a new tax. (There is another proposed measure, which Birch is not peddling, that would change the legislative vote required to pass a state budget from two-thirds to a simple majority.) Williams, a regular voter, admits to confusion on many of the initiatives. "I never know what...
...Reform California campaign ran out of money. One reason: Kimball's firm and others, fearing such a convention might change the initiative business, warned their contractors against carrying the petitions. Very few of the signature gatherers at the shopping malls across California are volunteers; nearly all are contractors like Birch, working for firms hired by the state's most powerful political players - many of whom like the system...