This year’s marathon campaigns and media frenzy have rekindled a love for all things political in many American students. Candidates strategize and spar with controversy-inducing cleavage shots and below-the-belt punches while media pundits spin out of control. And people are tuning in. This week’s presidential debate broke records for a political debate aired on cable station. The primaries have made The New York Times’s list of the ten most popular stories every day since before the Iowa caucus. The resurgence of political energy this primary season is a wonderful phenomenon. As we cast our collective consciousness towards November and beyond, however, it is important to remember that political participation should encompass more than bright lights and scandalous stories about the presidential elections.

One effect of this year’s increased political activity is an increase in California voter registration. Students have been drawn into California’s electoral process by the big names contending for presidential nominations; however, they should also extend their new-found political interest to the California propositions.

The editorial board would like to highlight the content of some of the proposed propositions currently being put to the voters. This year’s ballot will feature seven propositions. Four propositions, Props 94-97, challenge the amendment to an existing gaming compact between the state and Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians (94), Morongo Band of Mission Indians (95), Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation (96), and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians (97). The amendment would exempt certain projects from the California Environmental Quality Act and requires a portion of the tribe’s revenue to be given to the State Treasury’s General Fund. The proposition stops the amendment from going into effect unless a majority of voters approve it.

The remaining three propositions are concerned with transportation funding, community colleges funding and legislator term limits. Proposition 91 proposes changes to the management of transportation funds, earmarking moneys for the Transportation Investment Fund and prohibiting spending on unrelated matters, starting July of this year. According to the office of California’s Secretary of State, this proposition would increase the “stability of funding to transportation in 2007-2008 and . . . [reduce] the state’s flexibility to use specified transportation funds for other activities.”

Proposition 92 would build a system of independent public community college districts and instate a board of governors for the colleges. This proposition is part of the $135 million dollar increase in spending on education from the primary level to the Associates Degree in the coming fiscal year.

Lastly, Proposition 93 limits the number of years a person may serve in the state legislature from 14 years to 12. This figure represents the total number of years that a person may serve in any combination of Assembly and Senate positions and may in fact extend the amount of time many politicians would spend in the legislature.

For the many newly registered students on campus, the editorial board hopes students will carry the excitement from the presidential primaries to the ballot initiatives. If politics is about true participation and not merely following the reality game show-style gossip-mongering, then we should step up to the plate and inform ourselves on the nitty gritty of politics at the state, as well as the national, level.