Elsewhere in this newsletter you will find articles about our bills in the legislature and the progress IRV is making in Los Angeles, so I won't discuss either topic in my letter. But I am very excited about both the bills and our progress down south.

We continue to table at the statewide conventions of both major parties. [Editor's note: see photos at left.] Our outreach to their membership and leaders will help in the success of our legislative efforts.

I'm really pleased with the newsletter schedule we adopted about a year ago. We are now producing a newsletter three times a year. The team of Jim Lindsay editor and Bob Richard publisher seems to be working well.

We've been sending the newsletter to everyone on our list, whether they are current in their dues or not. However, once we have established a track record of producing three newsletters a year on a consistent basis, I plan to notify all the folks who have lapsed in their memberships that we will no longer send them the newsletter unless they renew. But that's not for a while yet.

Of course, you do need to be current in your dues to vote in the election for the CfER Board of Directors, which will take place at our Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Saturday, May 30th, 1:30pm to 4:30pm, at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento (UUSS), 2425 Sierra Boulevard, Sacramento, CA 95825. You will soon receive (or have already received) the official announcement of the AGM, along with your ballot and the candidates' statements.

The keynote speakers for the AGM will be Mark Paul and Micah Weinberg of the New America Founda­tion. They have published a proposal for electing the Cali­fornia legislature using a German-style mixed-member pro­portional system (half single-member districts, half party-list, with the list seats allocated to each party to com­pensate for the non-proportionality of the district winners), and I expect that is one of the things they will talk about.

We also plan to have a workshop by Steve Sosnick of U.C. Davis on the relationship between instant runoff voting and the Condorcet principle. And of course there will be the presentation of the Wilma Rule Memorial Award(s).

I hope to see you at the AGM.