California measures may sway nation

Thu Oct 28, 2004, 7:07 AM ET Politics - USATODAY.com

By John Ritter, USA TODAY

When California speaks, the rest of America usually listens, and voters here are poised once again to approve measures likely to reverberate in other states and Congress.

Long seen as the 800-pound gorilla of direct democracy, California was the first state or among the first to use citizen initiatives to cap property-tax increases, limit state legislators' terms, legalize medical marijuana and ban smoking in bars. Those pioneering votes inspired many imitators.

On Tuesday, Californians will decide two more: whether to commit $6 billion to stem cell research and to require companies to offer health insurance to their workers and pay most of the premiums.

If both measures pass, they could tilt the dynamics of two of the USA's most contentious issues, experts say. The insurance measure would buoy advocates of health-care restructuring stymied by well- financed foes and congressional inaction. Backers of stem-cell research see the California measure as a way to get around the Bush administration's ban on spending federal dollars for nearly all stem-cell research.

"California has always been the litmus test for organizations wishing to set a national trend," says M. Dane Waters, chairman of the Initiative and Referendum Institute, a non-profit research group at the University of Southern California. "If these measures pass, I think you'll definitely see clones" by the 2006 election cycle.

A third measure getting national notice would scale back California's three-strikes law, voter-mandated a decade ago but now seen as out of step with the rest of the country. California is the only state among 23 with three-strikes laws where any third felony conviction - shoplifting, burglary, car theft - can trigger a third-strike life sentence. Proposition 66 would require the third strike to be a serious or violent felony.

The Arnold factor

The three measures, among 16 on the ballot, have sparked the multimillion-dollar ad wars typical of California political campaigns but with a new twist: the star power of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Republican governor's lofty approval ratings in a mostly Democratic state make his support coveted more than that of his recent predecessors.

"Schwarzenegger's endorsement is the grand prize. It's an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony all wrapped into one," says Jack Pitney, political science professor at Claremont McKenna College outside Los Angeles. The governor's early attacks on two measures to expand Indian casinos are credited with their dismal poll numbers.

But whether his clout proves decisive on others is uncertain. The stem-cell measure, Proposition 71, is leading narrowly in polls, and the governor's backing is expected to put it over the top.

Researchers hope to turn human stem cells, early embryonic cells that are life's building blocks, into replacement tissue to treat spinal cord injuries and diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and juvenile diabetes. Conservative opponents liken the research to abortion because it destroys microscopic embryos.

Schwarzenegger's father-in-law, Sargent Shriver, suffers from Alzheimer's, but the governor touts the measure for its economic benefit.

"We daringly led the way for the high-tech industry, and now voters can help ensure we lead the way for the biotech industry," he says.

Proposition 71 would authorize a $6 billion bond issue to form a private institute to fund the research. Schwarzenegger brushed aside critics worried that more borrowing on top of $15 billion in bonds approved last year to ease a budget deficit would put the state in a deeper hole. He says the first Proposition 71 bond payments wouldn't be due for five years.

Schwarzenegger has aligned with business against Proposition 72, the health-insurance measure. It would require employers with more than 200 workers to pay at least 80% of their premiums starting in 2006. Critics say it would inflate California's image as unfriendly to business.

It would grant health coverage to 1.4 million of California's 6 million uninsured. But businesses say the added costs would put them at a competitive loss and force many to leave the state. Opponents, who've raised $8.5 million, include McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Macy's, Sears and Office Depot.

Unions and the California Medical Association have helped raise $6.8 million for Proposition 72. Schwarzenegger says it would damage the state's job climate, but a Field Poll released last week shows it winning by 16 points.

Three-strikes law targeted

Health-care overhauls have been defeated in other states, including Oregon's attempt in 2002 to pass universal health care. But Waters says the nation is ripe for grass-roots change.

"Health-care reform hasn't been addressed to the people's liking by legislatures or Congress," he says. "There's no doubt that victory in California will cause other states to take up the banner."

Schwarzenegger opposes Proposition 66, which would soften the three-strikes law, but voters by 62% to 21% favor it, according to a Los Angeles Times poll last week. In 1994, a period of high crime fears and publicity over Polly Klaas, a 12-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered, voters approved it by 74%.

Proposition 66's opponents, including Attorney General Bill Lockyer and the state's district attorneys, say the law should be revised but argue that 66 goes too far because it could release thousands of violent criminals.

The state estimates that 4,000 inmates would qualify for resentencing if the measure passes.

California has more than 42,000 people imprisoned under three strikes, compared with 7,631 in the next closest state, Georgia, according to the Justice Policy Institute, a non-profit group that advocates less reliance on prisons to control crime. More than 200 inmates are serving 25-years-to-life terms for stealing a car, state figures show.