RICH PUT AGENDAS TO A VOTE

Five Propositions on the Ballot Are the Work of Billionaires. For
Some, It's Business. For Others, It's Personal.

Five measures on the state ballot are the pet projects of the very
wealthy, which some see as an abuse of the initiative process.

California's ballot is often crowded with measures known as citizen
initiatives. But many of the citizens whose causes will come before
voters Tuesday are not everyday Californians.

International financier George Soros wants to change drug laws.
Computer technology titan Henry T. Nicholas III -- who has been
indicted on federal fraud and drug charges -- is pushing two measures
seeking tougher penalties for criminals and expanded rights for victims.

Oilman turned alternative-fuels investor T. Boone Pickens is pushing
subsidies for cars that run on substances other than oil. And Peter
Sperling, one of the founders of the highly profitable Phoenix
University system, is the financial force behind another green-energy pursuit.

Never before has such a large assortment of the extremely wealthy
placed their pet projects on the statewide ballot. Five of the dozen
statewide measures facing voters in this election have billionaire sponsors.

All of them are among the Forbes 400 richest Americans. Each has
spent millions to get his issue on the ballot.

The ability of the wealthy to bankroll ballot measures, paying for
petition signatures and advertising campaigns, has been increasingly
on display in California. Two years ago, for example, Hollywood
producer Steven Bing dumped $48 million into an unsuccessful effort
to raise taxes on oil to pay for alternative fuels.

But the size of this year's crop of billionaire initiatives is
troubling, according to some.

"Our initiative process has been completely corrupted from the
populist idea of people taking matters into their own hands when the
Legislature is not doing its job," said Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San
Francisco).

For the moguls, the attraction to the ballot is simple.

The investment of a few million dollars can redirect billions of
dollars in taxpayer money and upend statutes that have been on the
books for decades. Even though the odds of success are long, the cost
is relatively small for a person with a billion dollars or more.

"It is an opportunity to make powerful and effective change in one
fell swoop," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug
Policy Alliance Network, which used $1.4 million donated by Soros to
put Proposition 5 on the ballot and promote it.

That measure would dramatically change the way nonviolent drug
offenders are treated. Hundreds of millions of additional dollars
will be spent on rehabilitation programs if it passes, and inmates
will be given time off their sentences for participating in those programs.

The initiative process is full of risk: Many measures fail, and the
ones that pass can change laws in ways their authors never intended.
But when things go right, Nadelmann says, the ballot offers high
rollers the potential to create far bigger policy changes than they
could by directing dollars to politicians, lobbyists or nonprofits.

"For people who are interested in accomplishing real political
reforms, this is where you can get the greatest return on your
investment," he said.

The billionaires, none of whom would be interviewed, are using the
initiative process for a host of reasons. For Soros, long a critic of
America's war on drugs, it is ideology. Same for Sperling, who put $9
million into Proposition 7, which would require utilities to obtain
substantially more of their energy from renewable resources.

For others, the reasons are personal.

Broadcom co-founder Nicholas is pushing his agenda in memory of his
murdered sister. A $1-million contribution from him jump-started
Proposition 6, which would lengthen prison sentences for certain
crimes and allow people who lie to police about gang crimes to be
prosecuted as accessories.

Proposition 9, in which Nicholas has invested $4.8 million, would
require mandatory restitution when crime victims suffer a loss,
increase the maximum allowable time between parole hearings for an
inmate from five to 15 years, and allow an unlimited number of victim
family members to testify at such hearings.

Because the charges against Nicholas are federal, and his sister's
killer has died, neither initiative would apply to his current situation.

Sometimes there are financial considerations at play.

A company Pickens founded, Clean Energy Fuels Corp., is well
positioned to cash in on $5 billion in subsidies for drivers and
companies using alternative-fuel vehicles if voters approve
Proposition 10. The company spent $15.2 million to qualify and
promote the initiative.

Whatever the motives, said Robert Stern, president of the Center for
Government Studies in Los Angeles, the billionaires are "trying to
leave a legacy. And these are big legacies if the measures pass."

"They are probably thinking, for $10 million or $15 million, we can
actually accomplish something," he said.

As Stern notes, though: For powerful people accustomed to taking
control, the initiative process can be unwieldy.

Just ask Sperling. He expected his green energy proposal to be
attacked by the big utilities. What he hadn't anticipated, according
to a spokesman, was that some of the country's big environmental
groups would pile on.

The activist groups say that flaws in the way the measure was written
would actually stall the development of solar, wind and other
renewable energy in California, a charge Sperling denies.

"It is extremely disappointing to see traditional environmental
organizations lining up with the dirty power lobby," said Steve
Hopcraft, a spokesman for the Yes on Proposition 7 campaign.

Environmentalists from the big-money crowd have seen their plans go
awry before.

The campaign for Bing's 2006 proposition had lots of cash and coveted
endorsements from A-list celebrities and big environmental groups.

But the opposition persuaded voters that the tax would not have been
be paid exclusively from oil company profits -- as proponents
insisted -- but would instead have led to a surge in prices at the pump.

Stern said it is often the case that voters just aren't as enamored
of some ideas as the well-meaning wealthy.

"We are seeing fewer and fewer of these kinds of initiatives
adopted," Stern said. "Voters are cynical."