AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BAN LEADING IN WASHINGTON

MEDICAL MARIJUANA BACKED IN 3 STATES;

MICH. ASSISTED-SUICIDE INITIATIVE DEFEATED

In a fiercely contested battle that could boost the anti-affirmative action
movement in Congress and in states across the country, Washington state
appeared poised last night to join California in banning the use of racial
and gender preferences in government hiring and contracting and in
university admissions.

Voters in Michigan, meanwhile, decisively turned back a ballot initiative
that would have made their state only the second to allow
physician-assisted suicide, while in Washington state and Nevada they
adopted measures allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana for patients with
certain illnesses. Arizona voters, in a similar decision, effectively
reinstated a 1966 citizen-approved law legalizing marijuana for medical use
that the state legislature last year negated.

From abortion to the future of slot machines on Indian reservations in
California and from riverboat gambling to the use of union dues for
political campaigns, voters across the country also decided dozens of other
often controversial questions put to them by initiatives, referenda and
state constitutional amendments.

Sixty-one such ballot measures were voted on in 16 states. Despite the high
number, the count fell short of the record 102 initiatives that appeared on
state ballots in 1994.

Voters in Nebraska turned back a proposed constitutional amendment that
would have drastically slowed the rate of growth in the state budget and
returned to taxpayers any surplus generated by a healthy economy. Under the
proposal, future tax increases would have been limited to the rate of
inflation, population growth, the costs of temporary emergencies and new
spending mandated by federal government regulations. Similarly, South
Dakota voters rejected a measure that would have prohibited the use of
property taxes for school funding.

Some of the hardest-fought initiative battles were waged along the West
Coast. But because of the time zone difference -- in most cases polls did
not close until midnight Eastern Standard Time -- returns from that part of
the country were slow in coming and were not likely to be conclusive until
early today.

The most important vote in terms of national implications was the
Washington state initiative banning the use of race or gender preferences
in government hiring and contracting and in university admissions. Exit
polls and early returns showed voters favoring adoption of the ban by a 2
to 1 ratio.

The Washington initiative was copied from an initiative passed in
California two years ago -- and financed largely by a foundation led by the
chief strategist in that battle, University of California regent Ward
Connerly. It was seen as a bellwether measure that could encourage similar
moves in Congress and in other states. However, if approved, it also
appeared likely to attract the same kind of legal challenges that kept
California's ban tied up in courts for almost two years.

In California, early returns showed 60 percent of voters approving a
measure to expand Indian casino gambling that sparked the most costly
ballot initiative campaign in the nation's history -- totaling upward of
$100 million -- and pitted several Indian tribes against Las Vegas casino
owners anxious to keep California bettors on the highway to the Nevada
gaming mecca. The tribes, who far outspent their opponents in a relentless
television advertising campaign, argued that the right to install slot
machines and video poker games in their reservation casinos is vital to
financing social welfare programs for Native Americans.

Voters in Oregon, Washington state, Alaska and Nevada -- as well as in the
District of Columbia -- were voting on whether to allow physicians to
prescribe marijuana for patients with terminal diseases or suffering from
the side effects of treatments for cancer, AIDS and other diseases.

A similar measure was passed in California in 1996. But it has largely been
blocked from implementation by federal lawsuits and threats by Congress to
enact a law that would allow the Drug Enforcement Agency to revoke the
prescription-writing permit of any physician who dispensed marijuana.

In California, which recently moved its presidential primary from June to
March, one ballot measure could have a major impact on the 2000
presidential campaign.

The state recently adopted a blanket primary system, in which candidates of
all parties appear on a single ballot. The initiative being decided
yesterday would amend the system to allow traditional partisan ballots in
the presidential primary.

In Arizona, voters reinstated, in effect, the 1996 ballot initiative that
not only approved medical marijuana but ended the imprisonment of people on
their first two arrests for possession of several drugs. The 1996 voter
initiative was essentially negated by the state legislature last year, and
yesterday's vote repudiated that legislation.

Fiercely contested measures to restrict the late-term procedure that
abortion opponents call "partial-birth" abortion were being decided in
Washington state and Colorado.

In Washington, voters were being asked, "Shall the termination of a fetus's
life during the process of birth be a felony crime except when necessary to
prevent the pregnant woman's death?" And in Colorado, voters were
additionally deciding whether to require parental notification when minors
request abortions.

In Alaska and Hawaii, voters were asked whether they wish to define
marriage as a heterosexual union in what have widely been interpreted as
attempts to head off movements to legalize same-sex marriages in those states.

There were also several key economic issues at stake in the array of ballot
initiatives on the West Coast.

In Washington state, voters were deciding whether to raise the minimum wage
to $6.50 an hour by 2000, thus becoming the first state to require annual
increases in the base wage linked to the inflation rate.

In California, balloting was close on a measure promoted by Rob Reiner, the
actor and film director, and opposed in a vigorous and expensive campaign
waged by the tobacco industry, that would increase cigarette taxes by 50
cents a pack and earmark the proceeds for youth anti-smoking campaigns.

In Oregon, voters were deciding whether to approve an initiative that would
prohibit public employee unions from collecting part of workers' paychecks
and using dues for political purposes. They also voted on a competing
measure that would amend the state constitution to include the unions'
right to use some dues for political purposes.

Also in Oregon, voters went to the polls to decide whether they will ever
go to the polls again. Early returns showed the initiative, which would
mandate that all future elections be conducted by mail, was winning 55
percent of the vote.

Voters in Michigan, home of assisted-suicide practitioner Jack Kevorkian,
soundly rejected the ballot measure that would have made the state the
second after Oregon to legalize physician-assisted suicide, according to an
exit poll conducted by Voter News Service for the Associated Press and five
national television outlets. Early incomplete returns showed the measure
failing by a 2 to 1 ratio.

The initiative, known as Proposal B, would have superseded a state law
enacted earlier this year banning assisted suicide and allowed doctors to
prescribe lethal doses of medication on request from patients certified to
be mentally competent and diagnosed by two physicians as having less than
six months to live.

"Michigan wants compassion and comfort for those facing their final days,"
said Cathy Blight of Citizens for Compassionate Care, which opposed the
initiative. "They don't want death bureaucracies or manipulations of
vulnerable patients."

Many of the issues being decided by West Coast voters were also on the
ballot in other states.

Gambling was on the ballot in Missouri in what has become known as the
"boats in moats" issue. The measure, heavily backed by the gaming industry,
would amend the state constitution to authorize so-called "riverboat
gambling" at casinos that have been built on artificial ponds near but not
in the state's rivers. Missouri voters approved riverboat gambling in 1992,
but last year the state Supreme Court ruled that gambling must be confined
to the rivers' main channels, effectively threatening many of the existing
casinos.

Elsewhere, the issues ranged from campaign financing to taxes to animal
rights.

Measures to provide public financing to political candidates were on the
ballot in Arizona and Massachusetts. The Arizona initiative would provide
public financing to candidates for state office who receive a specified
number of $5 contributions and accept voluntary spending limits.

The Massachusetts initiative, which was similar but would not go into
effect until 2002 and only if the money is appropriated by the state
legislature, appeared headed toward a defeat by 2 to 1 with 80 percent of
the votes counted.

Arizona voters decided to ban cockfighting and in Missouri voters approved
prohibition on any form of animal fighting. However, voters in Ohio
defeated a proposed prohibition against hunting mourning doves.

Checked-by: Richard Lake