In a last weekend of frenzied campaigning before the June 8 primary, candidates for statewide office marshaled last-minute ads, attacks – even visits from Karl Rove and a fictional “Queen Meg” – to appeal to voters in what’s been a record-breaking season of political spending.

GOP billionaire and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who has spent a stunning $81 million on her gubernatorial primary effort, dropped a few more dollars Sunday by offering free barbecue and live music to supporters who showed up at rallies in Madera and Sacramento.

Whitman, boosted in recent polls suggesting she’s got a 2-to-1 lead over State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, was accompanied by former Gov. Pete Wilson at the rallies.

But Whitman was dogged at both locations by colorful protesters from the California Nurses Association hoping to remind voters of her pricey run.

The nurses staged a parade starring a fictional “Queen Meg,” complete with crown, royal chariot, and retinue including “Lord Romney” (a dig at Whitman supporter Mitt Romney). They also put up ads on Spanish-language media regarding Whitman’s connections with Wilson, an unpopular figure among Latino voters for his support of the controversial anti-illegal immigration measure Proposition 187.

Poizner hit a town hall meeting in Riverside on Saturday and a Christian church in Norwalk on Sunday to talk up immigration enforcement and continue to keep the heat on Whitman.

On the Democratic side, Attorney General Jerry Brown appeared eager to draw a contrast to Whitman in an opinion piece in the San Diego Union Tribune. He argued he would be a governor who relies on frugality, and is best positioned to get the state’s problems under control because he knows the legislature’s “history and its governing structure.”

In the race for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Democrat Barbara Boxer, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina – who appears to have the momentum in a contentious Republican primary – hit a phone bank in San Luis Obispo to encourage supporters.

“We must fire Barbara Boxer in November, and I am the only candidate in this race positioned to do so,” said Fiorina.

Rove helps DeVore

But another GOP challenger, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore of Irvine, got help from former Bush White House adviser Karl Rove at a Jewish Republican dinner in Los Angeles on Sunday.

The third GOP candidate seeking the nomination, former South Bay Rep. Tom Campbell, held one of his signature tele-town hall meetings Sunday, arguing he’s earned every major newspaper endorsement in the contest and is the only Republican shown in polls to beat Boxer in a head-to-head race.

In the Democratic race for attorney general, the campaign of candidate Chris Kelly, the former Facebook privacy officer, filed a complaint Sunday against the PowerPAC.org Voter Fund. Kelly’s campaign alleged the group violated the election law of making an independent expenditure by purchasing $140,000 in radio ads on behalf of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris.

Harris campaign spokesman Brian Brokaw charged last week that Kelly, who has donated $12 million toward his own campaign, is a “panicking candidate” who has resorted to increasingly desperate attacks.

Drives against initiatives

Two initiatives backed by expensive corporate efforts were also the focus of last-minute vote drives.

A leading consumer advocate charged Prop. 17’s chief sponsor, Mercury Insurance, of fraudulently suggesting in recent mailers that the Consumer Coalition of California backs the measure.

That coalition is “run by a Texas woman, Virginia Jarrow, who has repeatedly sided with industry,” said Harvey Rosenfield, founder of Consumer Watchdog, who also said Mercury failed to identify itself as an insurance firm in mailers as mandated by law.

Kathy Fairbanks, who heads the pro-Prop. 17 group, said the Consumer Watchdog allegations are “completely unfounded” and evidence of the group’s desperation in the final days of the campaign.

Mercury says the measure will allow consumers to get “continuous coverage” auto insurance discounts when they change companies, but Consumer Watchdog argues it will allow surcharges for tens of thousands of Californians, such as students and military personnel, who haven’t maintained continuous insurance.

Also Sunday, opponents of Prop. 16, a ballot measure funded by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., scored their biggest endorsement to date – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The most powerful woman in American politics urged Californians to reject the measure, which would require cities and counties to win the approval of two-thirds of their voters before spending public funds to enter the electricity business.

“Proposition 16 would make it more difficult for communities to choose more renewable energy through public power,” she said in a statement.

E-mail Carla Marinucci at cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com. Chronicle staff writer David R. Baker contributed to this report.

That same company, Los Angeles-based Mercury Insurance, is bankrolling Proposition 17 on the June ballot. Mercury wants you to trust it when it says that its measure will save everyone money.

When was the last time an insurance company spent $7 million on a ballot initiative to lower your rates?

In fact, Mercury’s Proposition 17 gives insurance companies the power to raise rates on millions of responsible Californians. Which is why you should vote no.

This deceptively written initiative allows insurance companies to surcharge people who have not been previously insured — even if they are perfect drivers but weren’t insured because they weren’t driving or didn’t own a car.

Proposition 17 also penalizes anyone who had to drop coverage for more than 90 days over the last five years, or missed a single insurance payment.

These surcharges are illegal in California today: The voters banned them in 1988 because the higher rates led to more uninsured motorists on the road.

In states that have laws similar to Proposition 17, the surcharges can raise the price of car insurance by 200 percent or more — adding thousands of dollars to the annual cost of insurance.

We must stop Prop. 17 because if it passes, it will allow insurance companies to punish law-abiding citizens who have done nothing wrong:  seniors who stopped driving for a period of time while recovering from surgery, for example.

Ditto for college students who don’t need a car until the summer.

Proposition 17 would even punish Californians who serve in the military stateside and must interrupt their coverage while in boot camp. Jon Soltz, the chair of VoteVets.org, strongly opposes Prop. 17 as does USAA, the national auto insurance company formed to insure members of the military. USAA says it cannot support Prop. 17 because it will penalize active-duty servicemembers defending our country.

We’ll all pay more than we should under 17, because when insurance company boost rates, more drivers will go uninsured. When they get into accidents, premiums go up for everyone else.

Californians are rightly suspicious when big corporations try to manipulate the initiative process for their own self-interest. In the case of Proposition 17, its sponsor, Mercury Insurance, has proved it cannot be trusted.

Arguments about Prop. 17 made by Mercury and its paid spokespeople have been repeatedly reviewed and rejected as false by the courts and state regulators.

And just last month, the Insurance Commissioner brought an administrative lawsuit against Mercury alleging that it engaged in more than 50 practices that are illegal under California law, victimizing thousands of Californians. Investigators discovered that Mercury failed to give customers the discounts they were entitled to and overcharged people just because they are self-employed, work out of their homes or had health problems. The company even broke its own previous pledges to regulators that it would stop violating California laws. The company faces tens of millions of dollars in fines.

Mercury Insurance’s sponsorship of Proposition 17 is like Bernie Madoff backing a ballot proposition claiming to protect investors.

The last thing California families can afford right now is an initiative that makes insurance companies less accountable for their actions, leads to more uninsured motorists and skyrocketing auto insurance premiums. That’s why veterans groups, seniors and Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, all agree: Vote no on Proposition 17.
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Harvey Rosenfield, who established Consumer Watchdog in 1985, has worked for the Federal Trade Commission, Congress, in private practice, as a staff attorney for Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen Congress Watch and as the program director for the California Public Interest Research Group (CalPIRG).

California voters may not be as open to the idea of legalized marijuana as they used to be, according to a survey of 500  likely California voters conducted by Smith/Johnson Research. The survey shows opposition is up four percent from November when a Probolsky Research poll clocked it at 52 percent.

But according to a poll conducted for CBS 5 by SurveyUSA that was released April 21, 56 percent of Californians support legalizing marijuana for recreational use. Only three percent of those surveyed were unsure.

California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, and in November it may also be the first to legalize it for recreational use.

Also on the ballot is Proposition 17, which would allow insurance companies to give “persistency discounts” to new  customers who have had continuous auto coverage. Mercury Insurance Group has provided 98 percent of the funding for the “Yes on 17” campaign.

The California Department of Insurance, whose commissioner is GOP governor candidate Steve Poizner, has accused Mercury of violating state laws.

“Within the scope of this report, 54 general practices were alleged as being in violation of California law,” reads the report from the Department of Insurance.

The report lists the main areas of non-compliance in the company’s commercial lines as being the “use of unfiled rates and the non-renewal of risks based on the agents’ requests.” The main areas of concern in personal lines were listed as “the misapplication of credits, the failure to provide a specific reason for policy cancellation and non-renewal, and the improper application of accident surcharges.”

Mercury has denied the accusations, saying they do follow the law, and suggesting that Poizner released this information for political reasons.

Also on the ballot may be the Financial Accountability in Redistricting Act, which would repeal the 2008 Citizens Redistricting Commission established under Proposition 11, giving the responsibility of redrawing district lines back to the  Legislature.

Haim Saban, the entertainment mogul behind Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, recently loaned $2 million to the campaign. A combined $160,000 has come from 14 Democratic members of California’s congressional delegation, including $10,000 from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and $20,000 from Assembly Speaker Karen Bass.

The repeal must gather nearly 700,000 valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot.

California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner announced this week that Mercury Insurance “may have illegally overcharged thousands of Californians for auto and homeowners insurance,” according to a statement from his office.

An “examination” of the company found that it was sometimes raising rates on drivers who had accidents, even though the collisions weren’t their fault, and that it was excluding some bartenders, liquor store owners, painters, cocktail waitress and waiters and artists from coverage.

Mercury was quick to point out, however, that Poizner is seeking the Republican nomination for California governor. The company stated that “political interests” were at play in Monday afternoon’s big announcement.

Even Poizner’s own spokesman acknowledged that making such a big announcement about such violations was unusual. But Poizner’s office argues that the company has repeated violations it had previously agreed to fix.

Mercury is the $3.5 million main backer of Prop. 17, a November ballot initiative that would allow transferable “loyalty discounts” for drivers who change carriers. But the rates would not apply to those who let their insurance lapse, therefore becoming a clever way to raise rates on some drivers, critics say.

Poizner’s office stated that Mercury could face $5,000 fines for each violation it found.