Eu Gives Up on Initiative for Dime Tax on Liquor to Pay for More Police Services

Secretary of State March Fong Eu on Friday gave up her celebrated battle against crime.

For lack of money and sufficient signatures after eight months of trying, she dropped her potentially people-pleasing ballot initiative designed to expand police services by imposing a 10-cent tax on liquor.

“We have lost a battle against crime,” she said.

Friday Was Deadline

Friday had been the deadline to submit signatures, and Eu could count only a little more than half of what she needed for her Dimes Against Crimes campaign.

The idea arose from a vicious mugging she endured in her Hancock Park home more than a year ago.

The robbery and beating at the hands of a career criminal, who has since been convicted, seemed to renew ambitions in the 65-year-old Eu, the highest ranking woman in California politics. She subsequently declared herself a candidate for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination and a “foot soldier in the war against crime.”

In October, she dropped her Senate candidacy. She was unable to raise the millions needed, she performed poorly in some early campaign appearances and her hopes of capturing the public imagination had dimmed. But most importantly, she said, she could not persuade her businessman-husband to divulge his international financial holdings as required of the spouses of federal officeholders.

No Choice

She had to choose between loves, she said. Her husband or higher office. And that was no choice.

With Friday’s demise of her ballot initiative, the former state legislator and 13-year secretary of state has found only disappointment in a year she hoped would be her best ever. But her supporters quickly rallied and said her failure to move up in politics should not be taken as a sign of weakness in the position she holds.

“I don’t think it says anything about her longevity as secretary of state of California. She fully intends to seek reelection,” said her deputy and adviser Anthony L. Miller. “And I think she will be reelected again and probably again if she wants. She has no intention of slowing down.”