Social issues so volatile that the presidential campaigns sidestepped them will be on the ballots in several states next week, including measures that would criminalize most abortions, outlaw affirmative action and ban same-sex marriage in California, one of only three states that allows it.

In all, there are 153 proposals on ballots in 36 states.

In Washington, voters will decide whether to join Oregon as the only states offering terminally ill people the option of physician-assisted suicide. Massachusetts has three distinctive measures on its ballot — to ban dog racing, ease marijuana laws and scrap the state income tax, a step that could unleash budgetary tumult.

The main presidential rivals, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, have rarely made proactive comments during the campaign about same-sex marriage or affirmative action — issues on which the public is deeply divided. Abortion also has seemed like an uncomfortable topic for them at times, although Obama makes clear he supports abortion rights and McCain says he would like to ban most abortions.

But in a half-dozen states, these three issues are front and center.

He says he was told the torture would stop when he confessed to murder.

Jones is among the dozens of alleged torture victims who have little hope of winning compensation, despite the arrest this week of a former police commander who officials say lied about the abuse.

Some have already completed prison terms for crimes they claim they confessed to only after police beat or electrocuted them. More than 20 remain in prison.

But the indictment of former police Lt. Jon Burge — while a moral victory — is unlikely to spring anyone from prison soon or prompt any quick settlement of claims for damages, lawyers for alleged torture victims say.

The state attorney general's office hasn't agreed to new trials for those claiming coerced confessions and the city opposes paying damages to alleged victims, they say.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., complained to Mukasey that after five years of efforts to glean the information, the committee still has seen only a fraction of the documents it is seeking.

"There is no legitimate argument for withholding the requested materials from this committee," Leahy wrote in a letter to Mukasey that accompanied the subpoena.

The Justice Department blasted the subpoena as a partisan move.

"We have worked in good faith over the past several months to see that the Judiciary Committee's legitimate oversight requests were being met in a manner consistent with the Justice Department's equally legitimate and long-standing need to provide confidential legal advice within the executive branch," department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said. "We will now assess our next steps."

Lawyers for the girl's family argued that the information they seek is necessary to prove that Planned Parenthood of Cincinnati had a pattern of violating Ohio's parental consent law and failing to report abuse. The unusual case pits a single plaintiff against the privacy interests of a decade's worth of patients.

Planned Parenthood attorney Daniel Buckley says the clinic has a legal obligation to protect the privacy of its clients' records.

Charles Miller, an attorney for the parents, told the justices the plaintiffs seek only three facts about other minors treated at the clinic: the girl's age, whether she had a sexually transmitted disease, and whether she entered the clinic pregnant. He said about 200 cases a year would be involved.

Chief Justice Thomas Moyer questioned how any of those three details would advance the family's case for damages.

"Where's the linkage?" he asked.

The court did not indicate when it would rule.

The case involves a girl who was 14 at the time of her abortion in 2004, when the state's parental consent law had not been completely settled by the courts. She had been impregnated by her 21-year-old youth soccer coach, John Haller.

The family's lawsuit accuses the Planned Parenthood clinic of failing to get parental consent, report suspected abuse or to inform the girl of risks and alternatives. It seeks unspecified damages.

Court records say the girl gave Haller's cell phone number as her father's, and clinic officials thought they had reached the father when they called inquiring about parental consent. Haller was later convicted on seven counts of sexual battery.

An appeals court ruled last year that records on other patients weren't necessary for the family's lawsuit.