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It's nearly the homestretch for the 2010 midterm elections, and unsurprisingly, race remains a hot topic. From a new ad in Nevada urging Latinos not to vote to Sharron Angle's latest comments about Latino youth looking Asian, and ongoing concern that black voters will not turn out in numbers like they did in 2008, it's clear that no matter how much candidates deny it, race is this season's hot button. Farai Chideya, of the public radio and multimedia news program Pop and Politics, has been traveling the country putting together a three-part public radio/multimedia series on "Race, Rage and Reconciliation in the 2010 Midterm Elections," and she joins Laura in studio to discuss what she's seen and learned.Dr. Joycelyn Elders is no stranger to making controversial statements in public, so her support of California's Proposition 19, the marijuana legalization ballot initiative, shouldn't be surprising. After all, years ago she was ousted as Bill Clinton's Surgeon General after noting that a discussion of masturbation should be part of educating young people on avoiding HIV infection.Elders joins us via Skype from Arkansas, where she is professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine and an associate at Arkansas Children's Hospital, to discuss marijuana legalization, the return of masturbation as a campaign issue, and the ongoing struggle for universal health care in the U.S."People are looking to state ballot initiatives to have some form of control over governance when elected officials are abdicating," says Jane Hamsher of this year's crop of ballot initiatives around the country. Perhaps best known is California's Proposition 19, which would legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana, but there are also important tax initiatives on ballots around the country, as well as state environmental regulations.Hamsher joins us via Skype and Nathan Newman of the Progressive States Network is in studio to discuss the various ballot initiatives and their effect both on voter turnout and on actual governance.

Last Friday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law the country's most repressive immigration bill, SB 1070, which criminalizes undocumented immigrants and gives police the authority to demand papers from anyone they suspect of being undocumented. Though Brewer, a Republican who took over from Janet Napolitano when she left to become Obama's Homeland Security secretary, claims that there are protections in the bill to prevent racial profiling, it's hard to imagine a way that officers will decide from whom to demand papers that won't involve the color of their skin or the language that they speak. Rinku Sen of ColorLines and the Applied Research Center joins us to discuss the bill, the criminalization of immigrants, and what to do to fight back. Distributed by Tubemogul.

Last weekend's 200,000-person-strong march on Washington for justice on immigration was spared from too much violence and anger because the press was largely focused on health care reform. But as that bill was signed into law Monday, immigration will again find itself at the top of the list for political action, and the passions that it inspires are certain to flare. Joining us to talk about whether the Obama administration and this Congress will have the will, vision, and political capital to get anything done on immigration--and whether the legislation being considered at the moment will do more harm than good--are Seth Freed Wessler of the Applied Research Center and ColorLines, and Roberto Lovato of New America Media.