ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 7, 1996 TAG: 9611070047
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
California turned its back on affirmative action. Florida rejected a sugar tax to clean up the Everglades. And pot smokers puffed celebratory joints in California and Arizona after marijuana was legalized for medical purposes.
Across the nation Tuesday, voters decided on ballot measures ranging from securities fraud to logging and leg traps - all of them hot-button issues in their states.
Colorado refused to squeeze property taxes from churches or to enshrine the ``inalienable right'' of parents into its constitution.
South Carolina clung stubbornly to the blue laws that make it illegal for retail stores to open before 1:30 p.m. on Sundays.
And Montana tried to polish its image. In the year when the fugitive Freemen held authorities at bay for 81 days, voters passed a measure that would make it easier to sue people accused of threats and ban the filing of bogus property liens - a favorite tactic of militia groups.
``Ballot measures are all about individuality,'' says Elaine Stuart, editor of State Government, a magazine published by the Council of State Governments, a nonprofit group in Lexington, Ky. ``They are about shaping our identity as individual states.''
Win or lose, they tend to pave the way for future legislation, and national change.
California's Proposition 209, which bans racial and sex preferences in public hiring, contracting and education, was widely considered the most divisive - and one of significant ballot battles around the country.
Both sides invoked the spirit and speeches of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, framing the debate as a vote on the future of discrimination and affirmative action around the country.
Supporters argued for a colorblind society, while opponents said the move would derail programs that counter racism and sexism.
The final say will likely shape affirmative action programs nationally - and will probably be decided, not by voters, but in the courts. Both sides Wednesday filed lawsuits over the measure - proponents to get it into effect, opponents to get rid of it as unconstitutional.
California also boasted some of the costliest campaigns, spending more than $40 million over a proposal to make it easier to sue for securities fraud. The nation's stock exchanges invested heavily - and successfully - in a campaign to kill it.
Environmental battles also attracted big money.
In Florida, $23 million in advertising by sugar companies and farmers helped persuade voters to reject a penny-a-pound sugar tax for Everglades cleanup. Fertilizer runoff has polluted the fabled ``River of Grass,'' but the voters refused an effort to make farmers pay almost half the enormous costs of restoring the wetland.
Maine's proposed ban on clear-cutting on 10 million acres of forest land turned into the most expensive referendum in the state's history, with paper companies spending more than $5 million to defeat it.
And in Idaho, actor Bruce Willis lost $85,000 in a failed effort to persuade voters to reverse state's nuclear waste deal with the federal government.
Massachusetts and Washington banned the use of dogs and bait to hunt bears while Michigan and Idaho rejected such restrictions. Oregon refused to repeal a 1994 ban on similar practices while Colorado banned leg hold traps and Alaska banned tracking wolves from airplanes.
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines KEYWORDS: ELECTIONby CNB