Once again - despite some congressional and statehouse races that were initially touted to be bloody cage matches - California's often confounding ballot initiative process took center stage during Tuesday's general election.

Arguably, the passage of Prop. 8 - the ballot measure that would ban gay marriage in the state - grabbed the lion's share of the public's attention and certainly a ton of TV advertising time.

The controversial measure - which opponents are already trying to invalidate in the state Supreme Court -- became the nation's most expensive social issue ballot measure with both yes and no sides spending a combined $70 million.

Californians also said yes to giving livestock more room to roam in the form of Prop. 2 and yes to wanting to travel by rail really fast in the form of Prop. 1A. Voters said no to doctors being forced to notify parents or guardians before performing an abortion on a minor in Prop. 4 and no to relaxing penalties for nonviolent drug offenders in the form of Prop. 5.

Golden State voters also said yes to the idea of taking redistricting away from entrenched politicians in the form of Prop. 11 - a personal favorite of Gov. Arnold Schwazenegger's - but they said no to two measures promoting renewable energy and clean fuels in Props. 7 and 10 - the latter being promoted by famed Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens.

Sacramento Scene

In the State Capitol, observers said the election only slightly changed the status quo of legislative power.

Though the results were a net gain for Democrats, the election will not result in many major shake-ups in state government, political experts said this week.

Despite apparently gaining seats in both the state Assembly and Senate, Democrats are still short of a two-thirds majority, which means compromise with minority-party Republicans will have to be part of any legislative deal-making, according to those experts.

"It's pretty much a holding action," Bob Stern, president of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies told PolitickerCA.com. "They've protected all the seats with redistricting too well."

Allan Hoffenblum, a former Republican political consultant who writes an annual guide to legislative races, said the Assembly seats both parties won were mostly "borrowed" from the other party.

"The gerrymander bent, but didn't break," he said.

Both men said Democrats have reason to be disappointed, but it's a reflection that for all the criticism California gets for "left-coast politics," Stern said, the state is more "purple" than blue.

Hoffenblum also said that in some closely contested districts, decline-to-state voters that Democrats targeted may have voted for (now President-elect) Barack Obama as the nation's commander in chief, but then switched on down-ballot races and went for Republicans, as well as passing Prop. 8.

"Obama's coattails were minimal," he said.

The results may also provide tax-resisting courage to Republicans going into a special legislative session this week to deal with an additional $11 million budget deficit.

Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines issued a statement late Tuesday saying he felt the election results sent a clear signal.

"Assembly Republicans did manage several decisive wins in districts across the state and Californians can take comfort in the fact that Democrats in California did not achieve their goal of winning a two-thirds majority," Villines (R-Clovis) said in the statement. "This means Republicans will still be empowered to protect Californians from higher taxes and reckless spending."

But Tuesday's results also come with caveats for Republicans, Stern and Hoffenblum said.

"I think there's a question of how much will the public put pressure on Republicans to go with what the governor wants to do on the deficit," Stern said, referring to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to enact a sales tax.

On Thursday, Schwarzenegger took that proposal one step further during a press conference when he laid out his agenda for the special legislative session, noting that a temporary sales-tax increase would be high on the agenda.

The governor also gained some credibility as a reformer, they said, by shepherding the passing of redistricting measure Prop. 11.

Hoffenblum said the pressure will be especially acute on three termed-out Republican legislators: Assembly members Bonnie Garcia (R-Cathedral City), Shirley Horton (R-Chula Vista) and Guy Houston (R-Dublin).

All three represent districts that went to Democrats Tuesday, and Hoffenblum said they may now feel compelled during the special session to vote for a budget solution that includes taxes.

As to whether Democrats will have luck at capturing more seats in 2010, Hoffenblum said it will depend on Obama's performance in office.

"Voters are still pretty unhappy," he said. "Neither side was able to achieve everything they wanted."

Schwarzenegger will also push for more government reform, they predicted. Stern said he could tackle open primaries, term limits or the initiative process, while Hoffenblum said campaign finance and open primaries could be targets.

Any such reforms, however, aren't likely to go before voters until 2010.

Finally, in the battleground 19th state Senate District in Ventura, Santa Barbara and parts of Los Angeles County, Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson and Republican Tony Strickland will likely have to wait at least a few more weeks before the final results come in.

On the mayoral level in Sacramento, significant change did occur with the ousting of eight-year incumbent Mayor Heather Fargo by former NBA star Kevin Johnson in what was a harshly fought, high-profile contest.

Key Congressional Races

Meanwhile, two congressional races that were touted early to be ones to watch by national pundits had very different results.

In the 4th Congressional District, Democratic challenger Charlie Brown took on Republican Tom McClintock in a heated race in which a winner still had not been determined as of deadline time for this story.

In the 11th district, where Republicans still slightly outnumber Democrats, the story was very different. Freshman Democratic Congressman Jerry McNerney breezed to an easy victory over hard-line Stockton Republican Dean Andal.

To the south, almost all Republican congressional incumbents in Southern California won re-election Tuesday night, though many by the smallest margins of their careers thanks to widely depressed turnout among the GOP base.

In Orange County, U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) won his 10th term over Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook with what appeared to be relative ease, beating the challenger by about 9 percent.

However, it was the slimmest margin of victory of Rohrabacher's career. In fact, as of Thursday morning, the long-time incumbent had won 54,406 less votes than he did in 2004, although there are thousands of provisional and mail-in ballots that have yet to be counted. Cook won only slightly more votes than Democrat Jim Brandt did four years ago, meaning that Rohrabacher's vote total decreased by about a third largely because many Republicans simply did not show up to vote.

"That's astonishing," Gary Jacobson, professor of political science at University of California, San Diego, told PolitickerCA.com. "That's a huge, huge drop."

Jacobson had argued before the election that California Republicans would turn out to vote on social issues like Prop. 8, the constitutional ban on gay marriage, no matter how close the presidential contest was. He was shocked to see strong evidence of depressed Republican turnout in a GOP stronghold like the 46th district.

"We really had a discouraged Republican constituency [after all]," Jacobson said.

Down in the San Diego-area 50th, U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Carlsbad) won a second term over Democratic challenger Nick Leibham by less than 5 percent. Turnout in this district was also significantly lower than in 2004, by about 35 percent. In addition, third party candidate Wayne Dunlap, of the Libertarian Party, proved to be a factor by garnering a surprising 4 percent of the vote.

While a substantial number of votes are still being counted in Riverside County, U.S. Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Palm Springs) looks headed to a comfortable victory of about 15 points over Democrat Julie Bornstein. This, too, would represent the closest contest of Bono Mack's eight year career. The four-term incumbent had never won a race by less than 20 points before this year.

The biggest surprise in Southern California came from CA-44, where eight-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) is in the fight of his career with Democrat Bill Hedrick. As of Thursday afternoon, Calvert was leading Hedrick by about 4,000 votes, with upwards of 75,000 ballots yet to be counted. The majority of the outstanding votes are from Riverside County, where Hedrick was leading Calvert by 5 percent.

Elsewhere, incumbent San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre, a Democrat, lost re-election to challenger Jan Goldsmith, a San Diego judge. Goldsmith soundly defeated Aguirre to the tune of almost 60 percent of the vote.

While the San Diego City Council will remain majority Democrat, a few of the races went down to the wire. Democrat Sherri Lightner defeated Republican Phil Thalheimer by about 2,300 votes in District 1, and Democrat Marti Emerald squeaked by Republican April Boling with just 704 votes separating the two District 7 candidates. And in a Democrat versus Democrat battle, Todd Gloria soundly defeated Stephen Whitburn for the District 3 seat. All three seats were held by Democrats who are termed out.

Democrats finally made good on their voter registration leads in the Republican-held 78th and 80th Assembly Districts. In the San Diego-based 78th, Democrat Marty Block defeated Republican John McCann by about 10 points. Out in the 80th in Riverside and Imperial Counties, Democrat Manuel Perez defeated Republican Gary Jeandron by about 6 percent.

As of Thursday afternoon, Jackson was leading Strickland by a mere 108 votes out of more than 300,000, and there are still thousands of absentee and provisional ballots to be counted.

This report was reported and written by PolitickerCA.com staffers Ben Van der Meer, James B. Gerber and editor Jeff Mitchell.