SACRAMENTO — The stakes are high and contrasts stark in Tuesday's special election to fill a vacant state Senate seat for a district that stretches from San Jose to Santa Maria, in Santa Barbara County. Democrats can inch closer to a two-thirds majority in the Senate with a victory, a prospect that has pitted powerful interests against each other in a bruising and costly battle over who controls the Capitol. The race features two candidates who represent the opposite ends of the partisan spectrum: former Assemblyman John Laird, an openly gay and liberal Democrat who is backed by labor unions...