STORMY 'WHETHERS' CONFRONT VOTERS

Referendums Range From Abortion To Casinos To Cigarette Taxes

SEATTLE---For Washington state residents who step into their polling
places Tuesday, deciding whom to vote for may be the simple part.

The harder part is all the "whethers": whether to ban most forms of
statesponsored affirmative action; whether to approve the use of
marijuana for medical purposes; whether to make it a felony to
terminate "a fetus's life during the process of birth, " and whether
to raise the state's minimum wage arid, for the first time in any U.S.
state, require automatic increases in that wage tied to the inflation
rate.

In California, voters have another dizzying array of choices,
including a measure to expand Indian casino gambling that has sparked
the most expensive campaign baffle over a ballot initiative in U.S.
history.

In many other states, there are constitutional questions. Several
states have "mini-Equal Rights Amendment" measures on their ballot
requiring more gender-neutral language in their constitutions. South
Carolinians will decide whether to remove a 103-year-old passage in
their constitution that forbids marriage between a white person and a
black person, a provision that the U.S. Supreme Court has already
ruled unenforceable.

In South Dakota, voters will decide whether to change a technical
oddity in that state's constitution that allows any: one as young as 2
years old to be elected governor. No toddler has ever managed to get
elected to the post, but if voters agree, the official minimum age
will be changed to the presumably more sensible age of 21.

And in Oregon, voters will go to the polls to decide, well, whether
they will ever go to the polls again. If Oregonians approve an
initiative on the ballot, and they are widely expected to do so, all
future elections in the state will be conducted entirely by mail.

Exactly 100 years after South Dakota became the first state in the
union to allow direct citizen lawmaking through a process generally
known as "initiative and referendum," voters around the nation face
many such measures this week, with the battles around some of them so
intense that they have generated at least as much attention as
congressional races.

All told, citizens in 16 states will decide on 61 such initiatives
Tuesday, while more than 170 other measures will deal with
constitutional amendments and bond issues, according to the Initiative
and Referendum Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Washington
that tracks the measures.

About half of the 50 states---most of them west of the Mississippi
River where strong populist movements have pushed for the right of
citizens to rnake laws---have some method for getting initiatives on
the ballot.

Over the last 100 years, initiatives have been used to advance a
disparate collection of causes, including women's suffrage, freezes on
nuclear weapons and term limits for public officeholders.

And while experts disagree on whether liberals or conservatives are
more likely to push their causes through initiatives, there is ample
evidence that both see it as an important strategy tool.

"Looking across the board, there's no way you can say whether the
process is used more by the right or the left," said M. Dane Waters,
president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute.

Across America, the most controversial and closely fought initiatives
this year include the gambling measure in California and another
measure there, promoted by Rob Reiner, the actor, that would raise
tobacco taxes by 50 cents a pack and designate the proceeds for
children's programs.

Measures to restrict the late-term procedure that abortion opponents
call "partial-birth abortion" are also being fiercely contested in
Washington and Colorado. Voters in both states are being asked whether
to criminalize the rarely used procedure, but abortionrights advocates
say the term "birth" is so vaguely defined that the measure could be
used to impose much greater resttictions on abortion irl general.

Voters will face a measure to make physician-assisted suicide legal in
Michizan the home state of Dr. Jack Kevorkiar;, who has attended rbgre
than 120suicides. Dr. Kevortianoti dshsthe measure as too restrictive.
'~

In Washington, D.C.; and Washington state, Oregon, Nevada and Alaska,
voters will be asked whether to approve the use of marijuana for
medical purposes. Such measures passed in California and Arizona in
1996 but have been blocked from implementation by federal lawsuits.

While supporters say the drug is a highly effective way of alleviating
pain for those who are ill, the federal government has come out
against the measures. Barry McCaffrey, the chief U.S. anti-narcotics
official, solicited letters of opposition to the measures from former
Presidents George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, and last week
Mr. McCaffrey denounced proponents of the ballot measures.

"Let's have none of this malarkey on marijuana smoking by cunning
groups working to legalize drugs," the former army general said.
"American medicine is the best in the world for pain
management."

Checked-by: Patrick Henry