LAWMAKERS DON'T HAVE VOTER'S TRUST

Poll Finds Only a Third Express Confidence in State Leaders, While
44% Trust the Public to Decide on Policies.

After an election year shaped by anxiety about the economy and
frustration with gridlock in Sacramento, a new survey by the Public
Policy Institute of California has found that most state voters have
little confidence in the ability of their elected leaders to work together.

In a sobering set of findings in the institute's post-election
survey, voters expressed more faith in their peers to decide public
policy matters than in their representatives.

Only 33% of California voters said they had "a great deal" or "a fair
amount" of trust and confidence in the ability of the state's elected
officials to craft public policy. By contrast -- even though they
described the ballot initiatives as confusing -- 44% said they
trusted fellow voters to make policy decisions at the polls.

"The job that the voters have in making public policy at the ballot
box is a very complicated one, and one that's become quite
burdensome, but they value doing that because they hold the elected
officials in such low esteem," said the institute's president, Mark
Baldassare. He noted that the number of voters who don't approve of
the way the governor and Legislature are working together has jumped
by 43 points in the last four years: from 36% in a 2006 post-election
survey to 79% this year.

"It just tells you the extent to which voters have lost confidence in
the governor and Legislature's ability to work together to solve
complex problems -- they feel like this is why the burden has come to
them," Baldassare said.

This year, that burden for voters amounted to nine state ballot
measures, and the poll looked at voters' responses to four of them.
Illustrating the state's deep partisan divide, Democrats and
Republicans ended up on opposite sides of three of the four
initiatives, with nonpartisan independents often leaning in the same
direction as Democrats.

Despite their shared frustration with Sacramento, there was a marked
difference between Democrats and Republicans on the successful
Proposition 25, which will allow lawmakers to pass the state budget
with a majority vote rather than two-thirds.

Two-thirds of Republicans voted against the measure, but 57% of
independents and 71% of Democrats voted for it -- with half of the
"yes" voters expressing a desire to break up the legislative gridlock
over budget matters.

There was more agreement on Proposition 24, the failed measure that
would have rolled back corporate tax breaks that were set to begin
taking effect this year. A majority of Democrats, Republicans and
independents opposed the measure, but it clearly generated confusion.
More than one-fifth of those who voted against it could not say why they did.

Drawing the most interest by far was Proposition 19, which would have
allowed the sale and cultivation of recreational marijuana under
certain circumstances.

Republican opposition was a driving force in the measure's defeat,
with nearly 3 in 4 of those voters opposing the initiative. Fifty-six
percent of Democrats and 55% of independents supported the measure.

As expected, age was also a major factor for Proposition 19, which
failed by 7 percentage points at the polls. Six in 10 voters age 18
to 34 voted in favor of legalizing marijuana, while 58% of voters 35
years and older opposed the initiative. Women were more likely to
oppose the measure than men, who were evenly divided.

Californians offered a wide array of reasons for opposing Proposition
19. A third of those who voted against it said they did so because
they believe drugs should be illegal. Another 12% said they didn't
think the measure would be good for the state. Others cited concerns
about child safety and the view that the initiative was poorly
written and would conflict with federal law.

Opinion was split on a separate poll question about whether marijuana
should be legalized. Of voters who favored the legalization of
marijuana, 88% said they voted for Proposition 19 and 12% said they
voted against it -- suggesting at least some dissatisfaction with the
way the measure was written.

On the ballot measure that would have rolled back the state's global
warming law until unemployment fell to 5.5% for a year, Californians
stayed true to their tradition of environmental protection, defeating
the measure by a 23-point margin.

Although proponents of Proposition 23 had argued that implementation
of the global warming law could cost the state jobs, the survey
showed that voters didn't buy it: Forty-one percent said the state's
effort on climate change would create more jobs, and more than a
quarter said it wouldn't affect the number of jobs overall.

Voters who wanted to keep the global warming law in place cited
concerns about air pollution (18%) and a fear that the law might
never be restored if it were suspended (10%). The ad campaign
vilifying the two Texas-based oil companies backing Proposition 23
also clearly got some attention -- 12% said they voted against the
measure because the oil companies were behind it.

Overall, 72% of Democrats and 64% of independents voted against
suspending the state's global warming law and only 54% of Republicans
voted for it.