VOTE BACKING TREATMENT FOR DRUG OFFENSES

Campaign Funding Limits Are Winning. Retirement Benefits For
Legislators Are Headed For Defeat.

A ballot measure requiring California to treat nonviolent drug
offenders as sick rather than criminally culpable appeared headed for
victory Tuesday, suggesting that discontent with the nation's drug
war is beginning to reshape criminal justice policy.

Passage of Proposition 36 would make California the second state in
which voters have demanded government-funded treatment, rather than
imprisonment, for low-level drug criminals.

"People finally understand that addiction is a disease--a treatable
disease--and that the answer to this epidemic is not locking addicts
up," said Gretchen Burns Bergman, chairwoman of the Yes on 36
campaign and mother of a son incarcerated three times for drug
offenses.

Conceding defeat, foes of the measure noted that they were outspent 9
to 1 by its backers, a gap that severely limited the reach of the
opposition campaign.

"The devil was in the details of Proposition 36, and we just didn't
have the resources to educate the voters," said Larry Brown of the
California District Attorneys Assn.

Barring a late-night surprise, Proposition 36 was poised to become
the second drug-related ballot measure opposed by law enforcement but
embraced by California voters, who endorsed use of marijuana for
medical reasons in 1996.

On other statewide measures Tuesday, voters were heartily favoring a
plan that sought to place modest limits on campaign funding but
threatened to gut a much tougher political reform law that has been
tied up in the courts.

A measure to give lawmakers state-funded retirement benefits was
headed for defeat, while another seeking to make it harder to impose
regulatory fees on industry was trailing.

Proposition 36 asked Californians to launch a wholesale shift in the
way the courts handle nonviolent drug offenders. Modeled after a
program adopted by Arizona voters in 1996, the measure proposed
spending $120 million a year to treat, instead of incarcerate, those
arrested for drug possession and ex-convicts who violate parole by
using narcotics.

Supporters built their campaign on polls revealing voter
disillusionment with the nation's 20-year-old war on drugs and kept
their message simple: Addiction, their ads argued, should be treated
as a medical problem, not a criminal one.

Opponents had some heavy hitters on their side, among them Gov. Gray
Davis, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer and scores of drug court judges, who
complained that the measure carried too few sanctions for offenders
who relapse. Actor Martin Sheen cut TV ads against the initiative,
and Betty Ford, namesake of one of the nation's most famous drug
treatment clinics, fired off last-minute e-mails attacking it as "a
giant step backward."

But the solid advantage in fund-raising went to Proposition 36
supporters, thanks to three millionaire businessmen who have
bankrolled drug policy initiatives across the country. With $2.8
million to work with, backers were on TV far more frequently than
foes, who raised about $440,000 and saw promises of big dollars from
the state prison guards union evaporate.

With the exception of the big-bucks fight over school vouchers, the
campaigns involving most of this year's other statewide initiatives
were ho-hum affairs.

Proposition 34, the campaign finance measure, sought to impose limits
on contributions and require candidates to report donations more
frequently. It was written by legislative leaders and backed by
organized labor and the Republican and Democratic parties--groups
that opposed earlier reform proposals.

The opposition was led by the League of Women Voters and California
Common Cause. They argued that the real issue Tuesday was not
Proposition 34 but an earlier, much tougher initiative approved
overwhelmingly in 1996. That stricter measure has been stalled in the
courts, but it may be reinstated and could be nullified by
Proposition 34, foes argued.

Another low-profile measure sought to make it easier for governments
to contract out for engineering and design work for projects ranging
from schools to highways. Proposition 35, put on the ballot by
private engineering firms seeking a larger share of lucrative
government business--such as the potential multibillion-dollar
traffic relief plan proposed by Gov. Davis--was holding a modest
lead, incomplete returns showed.

The union representing Caltrans engineers led the opposition,
focusing television commercials on the fact that the measure does not
require competitive bidding.

Proposition 37, placed on the ballot by tobacco, alcoholic beverage
and oil interests, asked voters to redefine certain regulatory fees
as taxes. A two-thirds majority vote of the Legislature or local
electorate is required to approve taxes, whereas most fees can be
imposed by a simple majority of the governing body.

Regulatory fees are intended to pay for the costs of adverse
environmental or health consequences of a product. But Proposition 37
sponsors called them hidden taxes that end up hitting consumers in
the pocketbook. Foes, including conservationists and health
activists, said the initiative would shield businesses from paying
for their harmful activities and saddle average taxpayers with the
costs.

Proposition 33 was the measure calling for reinstituting pension,
health and other retirement benefits for state legislators. Voters
stripped lawmakers of their publicly financed pensions in 1990, but
legislators argued that it was unfair to deny retirement benefits to
men and women who leave outside careers to serve in Sacramento.

Opponents said Proposition 33 represented an arrogant response to
voters who abolished legislative pensions a decade ago, and warned of
a return to an era of bloated legislative benefits. The campaign was
a sleepy one, with supporters raising about $93,000 and no official
group organized to oppose it.

Even quieter was the debate over Proposition 32, which asked voters
to authorize the issuance of $500 million in bonds to continue
financing low-interest home loans to about 2,500 military veterans.
Incomplete returns showed two out of three state voters favored the
bonds, which mostly benefit Vietnam veterans. They are repaid by the
vets' mortgage payments and are not a direct cost to taxpayers.

Aside from the statewide propositions, California voters confronted a
diverse array of regional issues, including about 50 growth-related
measures and an effort to rein in the expansion of dot-coms.

* A measure in San Luis Obispo County sought to prohibit agricultural
open space and rural residential land from being rezoned for
development during the next 30 years without a countywide vote.

With all but a few precincts counted, returns showed Measure M losing
after a contentious campaign that pitted ranchers, real estate
businesses and developers against slow-growthers who say suburban
sprawl is consuming their oak-studded valleys and hillsides.

Growth was also a hot issue in Sacramento County, where developer
C.C. Myers seemed certain to fall short in his bid to rezone 2,000
acres of grazing land and build a 3,000-home golf course development.
In a blizzard of clever TV commercials, Myers portrayed his
development as a godsend for seniors seeking housing. Foes, however,
called it a millionaire's blatant end-run around the county's
land-use planning process.

A few hours' drive south in Tracy, a Central Valley farm community
discovered by Silicon Valley commuters, voters approved a proposal to
slash the number of houses that can be built annually within city
boundaries.

* In San Francisco, anxiety over the displacement of artists and
nonprofit groups by the onslaught of big-budget dot-coms came to a
head with votes on two competing growth-control measures.

The fate of Proposition L, which sought to ban large new office
spaces in parts of the city experiencing an influx of high-tech
firms, was uncertain late Tuesday. Proposition K, favored by Mayor
Willie Brown and developers, was less restrictive, and going down to
defeat.

* Before election day, San Diego voters seemed closely divided over
two candidates vying to succeed two-term San Diego Mayor Susan
Golding, but Superior Court Judge Dick Murphy ultimately claimed
victory. Murphy, 57, and County Supervisor Ron Roberts, 58, spent
much of the campaign debating the stalled project to build a downtown
baseball stadium for the Padres and a controversial lease for
Qualcomm Stadium that requires the city to reimburse the National
Football League's Chargers for unsold seats.

Both Republicans and proteges of former Mayor Pete Wilson, the
candidates agreed on most issues and shared a background as city
councilmen in the 1980s. Early returns showed the race too close to
call.

Fresno voters also were choosing a new mayor Tuesday, and unofficial
results showed a TV star known as "Bubba" had triumphed in his bid to
make the valley city only the second in California to have an actor
as its mayor.

Alan Autry, who played the good-old-boy cop Lt. Bubba Skinner in the
TV series "In the Heat of the Night," defeated Dan Whitehurst, 52, a
former mayor who left office 15 years ago to pursue a fortune in the
funeral business. Autry, 48, had voted only once in the past two
decades--a vote cast for himself in the March primary--but he used
his celebrity and lack of political experience to woo support.

* In Mendocino County, voters solidly endorsed a proposal to make
their county the first place in the country to allow marijuana
cultivation for personal use. Critics said Measure G, which would
permit residents to grow up to 25 plants, was pointless because state
and federal drug laws would render it moot. But backers called it an
important protest statement against the multibillion-dollar war on
drugs.

* Residents of Morro Bay, northwest of San Luis Obispo, decided they
didn't want a say over any future expansion or replacement of a power
plant whose three smokestacks dominate their coastline. Owners of the
plant want to build a more efficient and powerful facility, would
have been required to get local voter approval under Measure Q, but
unofficial returns showed the measure lost Tuesday night.