PERSISTENCE PAYS IN CALIFORNIA POLITICS

ALTHOUGH dwarfed by the political high drama in Florida, votes cast by
Californians on regional and statewide issues Nov. 7 illustrate how fickle
and transitory political trends can be.

In fact, the outcome of state and regional ballot measures made three points:

Don't take "no" for an answer. Slinking into the sunset is no longer
politically popular or practical. Persistence pays off.

At least five ballot measures approved by voters were retreads --
contemporary variations of old issues that had suffered earlier rejections.

Cases in point were Alameda County Measures B (a half-cent sales tax
extension to fund transportation projects) and D (curbing residential
growth and sprawl in East County) as well as statewide Propositions 34
(campaign contribution and spending limits), 36 (treatment for drug use)
and 39 (lowering voting thresholds for school bonds).

Versions of each had been turned back previously, but were generously
accepted by voters this month.

The complement to not letting rejection get you down is realizing there
does indeed seem to be a time and season for most things political.

Timing is everything and it doesn't necessarily mean waiting forever for
fate's fickle political finger to turn. Voters can reject your idea today
and approve it tomorrow.

Changing the level of voter approval needed to pass local bonds for the
construction, expansion and improvement of school buildings is a case in point.

The state constitution's requirement of two-thirds approval for bonds to
build or upgrade local schools has been difficult to achieve in some
communities. Children in such districts seemed destined to learn in aging,
dilapidated schools and outdated, ill-equipped classrooms.

In March, a coalition of business leaders, teachers, administrators and
educational mainstays tried to get the two-thirds standard lowered to a
simple majority. Voters turned it down by a scant 2.4 percent. So
proponents came back seven months later with a request to lower the
threshold to 55 percent. It passed with 53 percent of the vote.

The same goes for Measure B, Alameda County's half-cent sales tax to raise
$1.4 billion for transportation improvements over 20 years. In 1998, voters
rejected it.

Backers spent two years ameliorating the concerns of environmental groups
and others who opposed the 1998 item. It sailed to passage two weeks ago
with an astounding 81 percent of the vote.

That landslide made Measure B both the most popular transportation tax in
California history and, along with Measure A in Santa Clara County, the
first transportation tax to meet the new supermajority of two-thirds voter
approval passed in 1996.

And, wasn't it just a year ago that voters in East County communities
turned thumbs down on local measures aimed at curbing the sprawl of housing
developments beyond their boundaries?

Yet, Measure D, the multi-million-dollar Sierra Club initiative that puts
an iron grip on urban boundaries in Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton,
waltzed to victory Nov. 7 with 57 percent approval.

Finally, election outcomes usually reflect voter perceptions of their own,
and society's, health, wealth and welfare. Put another way, "It's the
economy, stupid."

Ten years ago, stuck in a recession with stagnant wages and industries
fleeing to low-tax states, would California voters have approved a mass
transit-friendly sales tax or made it easier to increase taxes by lowering
the threshold for local bonds? Probably not.

It was also a time when drug use and drug-related crimes caused
considerable concern. So much so that citizens voted to get tough on
criminals and drug-related offenses. The result was stiffer sentences, more
prisons and more prisoners.

This month, we reduced penalties for some drug users and put $120 million a
year into community-based drug treatment programs. We didn't even ask where
the money would come from.

All of which reflects the transformation of the past decade. Dot.com and
biotech industries were in their infancies in the late 1980s. They are now
masters of our economic universe, sources of new wealth, higher wages, low
unemployment, a better standard of living and the longest period of
sustained growth in U.S. history.

It's much easier to be generous in good times than bad, as our 61 percent
to 39 percent rejection of the so-called War on Drugs and willingness to
put money into treatment, not punishment, indicates.

So take heed initiative advocates. Ballot measures are now an integral part
of the California political system. Voters may reject you one time and
embrace you the next.

A little tweak of your proposal, pinch of persistence, passage of time and
you too may get your day in the California sun.