Ballot fight targets biotech crops
As sides square off in Sonoma,
others want to outlaw bans by counties.

[excerpt:]
...prospects of such county bans spreading beyond California have prompted a dozen state legislatures to outlaw them, and California will soon become the 13th, if state Sen. Dean Florez, a Shafter Democrat, gets his way.

"We think that debate belongs in the state," Florez said. The senator, who represents parts of Kern, Tulare and Fresno counties, is seeking a special Assembly Agriculture Committee hearing this week on legislation he said could stop Sonoma County's vote.

With time short, Florez is planning a controversial, but common parliamentary procedure known inside the Capitol as a "gut and amend," stripping one of his air pollution bills of its language and inserting new language outlawing county bans on biotech seeds.

That's prompted a massive rallying effort by anti-biotech forces, who call the senator's move a last-minute "dark room" deal to subvert local democracy in California....

The full article is available on the Sacramento Bee website (registration required).

In addition to the article, the SacBee has an informative map of pro- & anti-GMO ordinances and resolutions in California.