Sacramento -- In what amounted to an amiable conversation among old friends, members of a state Senate committee Wednesday unanimously approved the nomination of a former colleague to become secretary of state, filling the position vacated by Kevin Shelley earlier this month.
The Senate Rules Committee voted 5-0 to approve the nomination of Bruce McPherson, who left office last year after serving for 11 years as the state assemblyman and senator from Santa Cruz. McPherson, whose family owned the Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper and who worked there as an editor, has a reputation as a moderate Republican.
In his testimony, McPherson said he would do all he could to increase voter participation, make voting more accessible and champion voting machine technology that would give voters the greatest confidence that their choices are accurately recorded. He said he was well aware of pressing issues before the secretary of state's office -- such as looming deadlines to create a statewide database of eligible voters -- and would move quickly to solve them.
Drawing on the lessons of his newspaper career, McPherson said: "Greater civic participation is the bedrock of a healthy democracy. Democracy is not the easiest system of government. In fact, it is the most difficult, because it demands so much of its people, who are the source of its power and its legitimacy."
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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/17/BAG0SBQG881.DTL
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