Students, community members, faculty, and news stations filled La Jolla Country Day School on Monday. The private school's Advance Placement Government and U.S. History classes led a forum between Republican Carl DeMaio, a former member of the San Diego City Council, and U.S. Representative Scott Peters (D). Both are seeking to represent California's 52nd Congressional District.

We're in the home stretch of an important mid-term election. The Senate looks to be in jeopardy -- the balance of power for the rest of the Obama administration seems up for grabs.

The television, Internet, and radio ads are a constant barrage of negative campaigning and mudslinging, making many long for a simpler time of honest campaigning.

But did that really exist? Or perhaps mudslinging has been with us from the very beginning.

After three years of drought, Proposition 1 will authorize $7.12 billion and reallocate $425 million of unused bonds to support water quality, storage, treatment, and supply through the development of a better supply infrastructure.

While the race for California’s 52nd Congressional District is gaining national notoriety for the heated contest between incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott Peters (D) and Carl DeMaio (R), the two candidates took time out last week to discuss emerging technology and open government issues. Open San Diego, a group committed to furthering the technology environment in San Diego through collaboration, hosted a “Meet the Candidate” series.

Leaders from the public, private, nonprofit, and university sectors gathered at the Great Hall at UC-San Diego on Thursday, October 16, for a conference on the state of politics in America today. The ETC Conference - Ethics, Transparency, and Civility Conference - focused on ways to increase youth engagement in political discourse.

According to a recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a think tank based in Washington, D.C., Kansas had the fourth biggest drop in per-student funding (total dollar amount) for schools in the United States since the beginning of the recession. In terms of overall percentage, Kansas is tied with Wisconsin for fifth largest decrease at 14.6 percent.

The three states with larger spending cuts to K-12 education were Alabama, Wisconsin, and Idaho.

Massachusetts' 6th Congressional District comprises a wide swath of the North Shore of Boston, an eclectic mix of wealthy, exclusive towns, working class areas, and fishing villages. Rich in history, it includes the home of the infamous Salem witch trials, centers for the shoe and leather industries, shipbuilding, and whaling, as well as claims that the area was the birthplace of both the United States Navy and Coast Guard.

If elected as California's next controller, Ashley Swearengin would be one of only a handful of Republicans elected to a statewide office in recent memory. She is trying to change the face of a shrinking California Republican Party.

Mayor Swearengin is campaigning as an independent, nonpartisan problem solver. Swearengin serves as the Mayor of Fresno, the fifth largest city in California. She fought hard to keep Fresno out of bankruptcy during the recession.

With less than a month until the general elections, community and political leaders came together to discuss the environment of political discourse at the University of California-San Diego’s Ethics, Transparency and Civility Conference.

A new poll in the Illinois gubernatorial race has some good news for both major party candidates, but shows the race is in flux and is likely to be decided by independents.