LOS ANGELES — San Jose’s Mercury News, the second biggest newspaper in California, has published an editorial excoriating Proposition 60, the adult film initiative. The paper’s editorial board calls the upcoming ballot measure “daft,” for the “porn czar” provision giving proponent Michael Weinstein the power to overrule the attorney general — and encourages voters strongly to Vote No on 60.

In the editorial, “Vote no condom measure Prop 60,” the Mercury News board pulled no punches:

“How bad is Prop 60? In a rare display of unity, California’s Democratic Party and Republican Party are opposed …

Prop. 60 is the brainchild of Michael Weinstein, CEO of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. He’s often described as uncompromising and dictatorial, and let’s just say he brought both those qualities to Prop. 60…

Weinstein is setting himself up as the state’s porn czar, apparently for life. He could only be ousted “by a majority vote of each house of the Legislature when ‘good cause’ exists to do so.” Funny, there’s no provision for the governor, Legislature or voters to name a successor if Weinstein is removed by the Legislature.”

“The problems with this law have been apparent from day one, for anyone who reads beyond the headline, “ says Eric Paul Leue, Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition. “It gives one misguided man the power to control the lives and livelihoods of thousands of adult industry workers, and creates a digital mob to sue, harass, attack those who work in this industry, even a married couple filming from their own home. Under Prop 60, the entire production chain is liable, from performers and producers to retailers and cable companies.”

The Mercury News Group, which publishes over two dozen papers in California, also published the editorial under a slightly different title in the East Bay Times. The full editorial can be read at MercuryNews.com

PAID FOR BY NO ON PROPOSITION 60, CALIFORNIANS AGAINST WORKER HARASSMENT, SPONSORED BY THE FREE SPEECH COALITION