SPENDING TRUMPS SOCIAL ISSUES AT BALLOT BOX THIS TIME

WASHINGTON -- When it comes to the state and local ballot measures
before voters across the country on Tuesday, it is mostly about the money.

While hot-button issues like immigration and gay rights attracted the
focus of measures in the past several elections, nuts-and-bolts
concerns like health care financing, road projects and land-use
regulations fill local and state tickets this time.

Overall, Election Day is expected to be a calmer affair this year.
There is only one Congressional race (a special primary in the Fifth
District in Ohio), and the presidential vote is a year away. Few
close contests are expected as voters choose governors in two states
and mayors in five major cities.

There are 34 statewide propositions in 6 states being decided, down
from 204 in 37 states in 2006, and 39 the year before, according to
the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern
California, which tracks ballot trends. In 2006, 9 states had
statewide ballot initiatives concerning gay rights and 3 states had
initiatives on marijuana use. No states have ballot measures
concerning either issue on Tuesday.

In the Mississippi governor's race, John Arthur Eaves Jr., a Democrat
and long shot to win, is running an overtly religious campaign in the
hope of stealing some of the evangelical support behind the
Republican incumbent, Haley Barbour, who is ahead in the polls and in
fund-raising.

In Kentucky, Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a Republican, has staged a comeback
from just over a year and a half ago when he was under indictment and
had approval ratings in the 20s. Still, his Democratic opponent,
Steve Beshear, a former lieutenant governor and former attorney
general, is expected to win the seat, which was held by Democrats for
more than three decades before Mr. Fletcher's victory in 2003.

Democrats are also expected to win mayoral contests in Pittsburgh,
Philadelphia, San Francisco, Baltimore and Houston. In the
Congressional race in Ohio, both parties are holding primaries to
fill the seat of Representative Paul E. Gillmor, a Republican, who
died in September.

Among the ballot measures, school financing is a particularly hot
topic as voters in at least six states -- California, Maine,
Minnesota, North Carolina, Utah and Virginia -- decide local and
state measures on education spending.

In Minnesota, more than 120 school districts are asking for more
money. In Ohio, where lawmakers have struggled to fix a
school-financing system that has been ruled unconstitutional four
times since 1997, more than 220 tax levies or bond issues related to
school financing are on local ballots.

On the heels of several years of record borrowing by local and state
officials, agencies closest to the ground -- school districts, for
example -- are finding it tougher to stretch finances, and
administrators are increasingly turning to voters for bailouts.

Overcrowding has left school officials in Antelope Valley, Calif.,
about an hour north of Los Angeles, asking voters to decide on $240
million in bonds for new construction and renovations.

In Fairfax County, Va., a well-to-do but rapidly expanding Washington
suburb, the ballot contains a $365 million bond to build and refurbish schools.

Teachers' unions and other education groups in Utah have pushed a
referendum to repeal a new law that provides school vouchers of $500
to $3,000 to low-income students. The original law was narrowly
approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature earlier this year.

G. Terry Madonna, a professor of public affairs and director of the
Keystone Poll at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, said
that especially in areas with recent population growth, local needs
have grown but budgets have shrunk and local officials are often
required by state constitutions to get permission from voters for new spending.

Some of the most expensive fights involve health care financing.

In Oregon, tobacco companies have spent more than $10 million to
block a measure that would increase cigarette taxes by 84.5 cents a
pack. The increase would be used to pay for health care for uninsured
children. Supporters of the expanded health care coverage have raised
almost $1.4 million, much of the money coming from hospitals and
health insurance companies, and spent about $460,000 on television
advertisements. The spending by both sides has made the ballot
measure the most expensive in the state's history.

Tobacco companies have waged equally aggressive fights in recent
years in California and Missouri to defeat similar measures, though
one such measure passed last year in Arizona despite efforts by the companies.

In Washington State, trial lawyers and insurance companies are
battling a proposal to repeal a state law that allows consumers to
seek triple damages in court against nonmedical insurers that
unreasonably deny claims.

Oregon voters are also deciding whether to scale back a 2004 law
requiring governments to compensate landowners for any loss in value
caused by land-use regulations, or to waive those regulations.

So-called wedge issues are not entirely absent from Tuesday's tickets.

In Texas, conservatives oppose the omission of a stem cell research
ban in Proposition 15, a constitutional amendment that would allow
the state to borrow $300 million a year over the next decade to
finance cancer research.

In Hailey, Idaho, voters are faced with four initiatives that would
legalize or decriminalize marijuana and direct city officials to
lobby for the passage of similar measures statewide.

In Denver, an initiative would make the private use and possession of
an ounce or less of marijuana by people 21 and older the city's
lowest law-enforcement priority. Supporters of the proposed
initiative, which is similar to regulations in Seattle and Missoula
County, Mont., say that the police have more pressing problems and
that the use of small amounts of marijuana is less harmful than
alcohol to adults.

Voters in Missoula will decide on a measure calling for the immediate
withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. If it is passed, Missoula
would join more than 200 other cities and towns that have passed
similar resolutions.