Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 6, 1995 TAG: 9511060079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Political correctness in California. Secession in Kentucky. Affirmative action - by ZIP code, not race - in Minnesota. Not your usual ballot issues, but they spice the thin stew of proposals voters will decide Tuesday.
In the four-year election cycle, the November before a presidential contest means a break for most voters from the annual hurly-burly of picking officeholders.
With few statewide races, it also means fewer citizen initiatives, or referendums, since most of the 24 states that let voters enact laws by putting measures on the ballot limit them to general elections.
But constitutional amendments and local measures may be proposed at any time. In at least 21 states, those will be most of the questions of public policy put to voters, as well as the usual bond issues, such as Maine's four issues totaling $91.9 million to pay for roads, railways, water and airports, and bridges.And the more local, the quirkier.
Some of America's richest people are fighting what some consider embarrassing riches. Marin County, Calif., voters, whose $28,381 per capita income topped the 1990 census, will decide if they want a $40 million showcase designed by I.M. Pei to house researchers looking for ways to make old age more enjoyable.
People in the farming community of Tollesboro, Ky., furious since the county closed two schools, want to secede and join the county next door.
San Franciscans get a rare chance to vote on political correctness. The question: Should Cesar Chavez Street, named this year for the late founder of the United Farm Workers Union, revert to its name since 1850: Army Street. The street is a main artery in the heavily Hispanic Mission District, and roads and schools all over California are being named for Chavez, who died in 1993. But renaming the 2.5-mile byway tests San Francisco's tradition of tolerance against its love of its history.
And though no one calls it affirmative action, a measure on the St. Paul, Minn., ballot would require businesses getting at least $25,000 in government aid to favor city residents in hiring and pay those workers a ``living wage'' of $7.21 an hour.
Several measures echo recent national conversations.
The words ``homosexual'' and ``sexual orientation'' do not appear in an anti-gay rights measure in Maine, but the most controversial item on the ballot would forbid any new categories of protection to be added to existing law.
A citizen's referendum in Washington state asks whether to keep mothballed legislation requiring state and local governments to pay property owners when regulations lessen property values.
Mississippi is expected to become the 22nd state to limit terms for lawmakers in the state's first use of its citizen initiative.
New Jersey votes on unfunded mandates, a battle cry that this year moved Congress to require the U.S. government to pay for most regulations it forces on states. The New Jersey proposal would compel legislators to provide enactment money for any law imposed on local governments or school districts.
Texans could shut down their treasurer's office and give the job to the comptroller, a cost-cutter even the Democratic incumbent endorses. In fact, Martha Whitehead won election last year promising to plug for abolition of her 119-year-old agency. Estimated savings: $22 million and 160 jobs.
by CNB