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Monday, April 1, 1996

Only 39 percent of Californians make it to ballot box

By John Digrado

Daily Bruin Staff

With California's role in the presidential race essentially moot, voters turned their attention to matters closer to home during Tuesday's primary election.

Voters rejected three initiatives lashing out against lawyers, gave much-needed aid to its ailing schools and earthquake victims, and kept the mountain lion on the endangered species list.

Additionally, California became the 13th state to declare an open primary, allowing voters to cast their ballots across party lines in a primary election.

All this occurred during the state's first-ever March primary with scarcely 39 percent of registered voters going to the polls ­ the worst turnout for a presidential primary in the state's history.

California Secretary of State Bill Jones conceded that moving the primary from June to March was a futile attempt to give California a greater influence in the nominating process.

"Until we revise the nation's primary system to enable various states to have influence in the presidential nominating process, we run the risk of seeing fewer and fewer voters go to the polls in states, like ours, where the primary is held after the parties' nominations are clinched," Jones said.

Despite the low turnout, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole still clinched the GOP presidential nomination with California's 165 delegates, which put him well above the 996 needed to be nominated.

California represented Dole's first opportunity to run his campaign against the Democratic party, having defeated the other Republican vying for the nomination. Dole took renewed aim against incumbent President Clinton, stating that "No state has paid a bigger price for the broken promises of Bill Clinton than California."

Consolidating his party's support behind him, Dole invited GOP opponent Pat Buchanan to join the Republican effort to defeat Clinton in the November elections.

The suggestion came amid rumors that Buchanan, having been all but defeated by the Kansas senator, may bolt the party in favor of an independent run for the Oval Office.

"If he'll take a look at what we've been doing, then I believe he'll fully understand that his future and our future are the same. They're in this party," Dole told GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

But so far, Buchanan has refused to give up the fight, despite losing 25 consecutive primaries to the Kansas senator. He has not yet decided the fate of his campaign.

It is possible that Buchanan may be considered by Dole for the second position on the GOP ticket. Dole may also give the nod to one of several Republican state governors. California Gov. Pete Wilson, Michigan Gov. John Engler and South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell are all being considered for the position.

In addition to sealing Dole's nomination, voters also cast their ballots on 12 state initiatives Tuesday.

Californians gave $3 billion to state schools with the passage of Proposition 203. More than two-thirds of the money from the school bond issue will benefit the state's ailing K-12 system.

The bond initiative also gives $996 million to public colleges and universities for capital improvements. Proposition 203 gives $39.2 million to UCLA for a combination of maintenance and seismic renovations on 10 buildings throughout the campus.

"I think people decided that they are ready for strategic investments in those things that will move California into the 21st century," said Delaine Eastin, state superintendent of public schools. "Even with just a mid-range IQ, you should be able to figure out that in an information economy, the advantage goes to the country with the best educational system."

Proposition 192, a $2 billion state bond issue to strengthen hundreds of seismically unsafe highway bridges and overpasses, passed with more than 60 percent of the vote. The issue provides money to seismically retrofit more than 1,100 structures that were identified as potentially unsafe following the January 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Voters also rejected three controversial anti-attorney initiatives in a surprising upset of what supporters believed may have begun a national backlash against lawyers.

Proposition 200 was a no-fault auto insurance measure under which the insurer would have to pay for all damages, regardless of who was to blame. The initiative would have taken all claims out of the courts, except for accidents involving drunk drivers, police pursuits and intentional crashes. It was defeated 65 percent to 35 percent.

Losing parties in securities class-action lawsuits would have had to pay the winner's attorney fees under Proposition 201, a measure that lost 59 percent to 41 percent.

And Proposition 202, which would have capped lawyers' fees at 15 percent of a settlement if the plaintiff agreed to settle within 60 days, was defeated by a narrow 1-percent margin, 51 to 49.

California also broke down barriers that kept voters from casting ballots for candidates across party lines in primary elections with Proposition 198.

Open primaries will now force politicians to address mainstream concerns instead of parties' fringe elements, explained Susan Harding, chairwoman of Californians for an Open Primary.

"What I'm hoping is that the candidates who are running will feel safe enough to actually discuss the issues that we're dealing with, instead of some fringe issues that will probably never come up" in a major election, she said.

Opponents of the measure said that the ballot measure will eventually be thrown out as unconstitutional.

"Members of a party should be allowed to decide who their nominee should be without interference from members of other parties," said Ruth Holton, executive director of California Common Cause.

Holton said that the proposition may violate First Amendment rights to assemble by allowing members of other parties to "intrude" upon the nomination of one party's candidate.

However, supporters said Proposition 198 created a system of open primaries identical to those in Alaska and Washington, which have already survived challenges in state supreme courts. Twenty-nine other states already have open primaries as well.

Voters also turned down an initiative that would have removed a 24-year ban on mountain lion hunting. Proposition 197 keeps mountain lions on a list of endangered species as part of 1990's California Wildlife Protection Act.

The proposition came in light of two highly publicized 1994 mountain lion attacks that left two joggers dead. It was defeated 58 percent to 42 percent.

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