Former BC professor Jerry Ludeke talked about Project Vote-Smart and attorneys Milt Younger and Ken Scott gave their opinions about Prop. 64 at the political forum Oct. 21 at Forum East.

The forum was organized by the Center for Kern Political Education and the BC Student Government Association.

Ludeke talked about the Web site of Project Vote-Smart, www. vote-smart.org. She talked about how the site can help people make more informed decisions on how they will vote. She said that the mission of Project Vote-Smart is to provide people with a non-partisan source to find information about candidates. It has information about every candidate running in an election and on how most of them stand on issues. Project Vote-Smart has a staff of about 33 people, mostly volunteers and student interns.

“They provide factual information for free on about 40,000 different candidates. It’s very difficult to find factual information nowadays, so having a source is good,” Ludeke said.

Younger and Scott came up next. Scott was for Prop. 64, and Younger was against it. Each of them came up individually and gave their viewpoints. They also gave rebuttals.

Supporters of prop 64 say it will protect small businesses from frivoulous lawsuits.

“This is known as the unfair competition and business practices act in the state of California,” Scott said.

Younger said that without the law private citizens wouldn’t be able to hold companies accountable.

“This allows private citizens to bring action for unfair, unlawful, or fraudulent business practices,” Younger said.

He noted that the supporters of Prop. 64 are big businesses, such as banks and insurance companies.

A BC professor in attendance said that she had never seen the Project Vote-Smart Web site before.

“I thought it was very interesting. I have never looked at the Project Vote-Smart Web site so I think it is a very good Web site that I will certainly look at and also encourage my students to look at,” said Isabel Stierle, biology professor.