MAINE OKS MEDICAL MARIJUANA PLAN

A referendum to legalize marijuana for medicinal use passed in Maine
on Tuesday while a ban on certain late-term abortions was trailing.
Voters elsewhere were deciding on proposals ranging from banning ATM
fees to fluoridating water.

With 23 percent of precincts reporting, the medical marijuana measure
had 55,483 votes, or 61 percent, to 35,300 or 39 percent opposed. The
anti-abortion proposal was losing 47,739 to 42,697, 53 percent to 47
percent.

Voters in San Francisco were deciding for the first time anywhere on
those extra charges of $1, $2 or more for using another bank's
automated teller machine. Oregonians weighed whether to allow murder
convictions by an 11-1 jury vote instead of a unanimous one.

The ballot in Missoula, Mont., featured an initiative that would set a
local minimum wage of $8 an hour with benefits for municipal employees
and private employees whose companies get $5,000 or more in city
assistance. (The federal minimum wage is $5.15. Some 40 U.S. cities
and counties have such laws in some form.)

In Washington state, voters weighed in on America's most sweeping
tax-revolt proposal -- a ballot measure coupling a big car-tax cut
with veto power over all future taxes and fees.

It would substitute an annual fee of $30 per car to replace a
much-maligned tax of 2.2 percent of the vehicle's value -- hundreds of
dollars for many motorists -- for a tax break worth $750 million a
year.

The measure also would require state and local officials to go to the
public anytime they wanted to raise a tax or fee -- a basic shift of
tax-writing power that no other state has adopted to this degree.

Nearly the entire political establishment, from Gov. Gary Locke down
to town councils, was united in opposition, joined by an unlikely
coalition of business, labor and environmentalists.

They say the measure will wipe out a third of the state highway
budget, including a new construction plan approved by state voters
just last fall.

Overshadowed by the fight over car fees was a proposal to ban most
commercial fishing nets from Washington waters.

Supporters said the initiative would take a big step toward preserving
the state's salmon runs by removing nets and other gear that scoop up
fish by the thousands and tear up the ocean floor.

Foes said the measure would cripple an entire industry, wiping out
hundreds and maybe thousands of jobs, without saving many salmon or
any other fish. The commercial fishing industry spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars trying to defeat the measure.

Maine's proposal to ban what abortion-rights opponents call
partial-birth abortion is similar to measures adopted in some 30
states. The courts have barred or sharply restricted 20 states from
enforcing them, and with recent court decisions going both ways, the
showdown seems headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.

The medicinal-marijuana referendum authorizes possession and use for
specific medical conditions when patients are advised by a doctor they
might benefit from the drug. The list of qualifying ailments includes
loss of appetite from AIDS or cancer treatments, glaucoma and seizures
or muscle spasms from chronic diseases.

Since 1996, five states -- California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and
Arizona -- and the District of Columbia have passed medical marijuana
initiatives.

In Indiana, the city of Connersville was deciding whether to shed its
status as the largest city in the state without fluoridated water.
Dentists and other proponents cited studies that show the city has a
20 percent higher rate of cavities than the state average, while
opponents argued that introduction of fluoride into public water
systems is a government conspiracy.

In a nonbinding referendum resulting from changing attitudes in the
posh Sun Valley area, the city of Ketchum, Idaho, was re-examining the
25-year-old tradition for a mock six-gun shoot-out on Main Street
during the community's annual Wagon Days festival.

Among other measures on the ballot:

- -- A $2.3 billion bond issue for transportation in the Denver area,
including widening congested Interstate 25. A separate measure would
expand Denver area's light-rail system.

- -- A constitutional amendment to restrict Mississippi state
legislators to back-to-back terms was trailing. With about a third of
the votes counted, 57 percent opposed the limits to 43 percent in favor.