HISTORICALLY AN OPEN haven for technological innovations and scientific inquiry, with a university system that strongly supports research and a biomédical industry employing over 200,000 people, California has recently become—and is determined to remain—a leader in stem cell research. On November 2, 2004, three years after the Bush administration limited federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research to research dealing with stem cell lines already created as of August 9, 2001, the state of California passed Proposition 71, essentially electing to have the state assume a level of involvement in stem cell research that would ordinarily only be found at the federal level. In that sense, the vote is important not only to embryonic human stem cell research—it is the largest source of American ...