REGIONAL REPORT / NORTHWEST POLITICS : Voters Taking Initiative on Issues From Nuclear Power to Pot : Washington will decide whether to control state growth, and Montana may choose a new method of taxation.

Northwesterners merrily agree the quality of life here sets them apart from other Americans. But they disagree quite feverishly on how to maintain it, and the terms of that debate color autumn elections throughout the region.

Next month, Oregon voters face yet another benchmark test for the troubled nuclear power industry and flirt with perhaps the most far-reaching school enrollment reform in the nation. In Washington state, voters decide whether to take a stab at controlling population growth with an initiative they call “Little Green.” In the frontier of Alaska, America’s easiest-going marijuana law is under fierce attack. And in Montana, even the traditional system of taxation is being challenged.

Among the personalities standing for election, one of the Senate’s most venerable faces is seen as unexpectedly vulnerable. That would be Sen. Mark O. Hatfield, the independent-minded Oregon Republican. Oregon, along with Alaska, also chooses a new governor in November, and Idaho will elect a new U.S. senator.

A sampler of 1990 Northwest politics:

Oregon

This year, environmentalists successfully qualified a proposition to shut the 14-year-old Trojan nuclear power plant northwest of Portland near the Columbia River. Measure 4 permits restarting the 1,100-megawatt facility only after national approval of a permanent waste disposal site and after economic analysis and earthquake safety studies of the Trojan plant are completed.

Public education also is on trial in the state. A Libertarian-sponsored initiative, Measure 11, would establish open enrollment in all public schools and provide tax credits for families sending their children to private schools. Experts believe that it is the most far-reaching proposal of its kind to reach voters.

And if that is not enough, Oregonians face two potentially headline-grabbing anti-abortion proposals. One, Measure 8, which is given only a remote chance, would declare abortion illegal except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother. The other, Measure 10, which figures to be closer, would require parental notification before teen-agers could have abortions.

Hatfield is the No. 2 ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate and eighth in seniority overall. He is the senior Republican on the Appropriations Committee and has held statewide office here since 1956. His feisty opponent is Democrat Harry Lonsdale, who built a successful business developing technologies to clean up toxic waste and provide nonpoisonous alternatives to pesticides.

Much ground separates the two, but Lonsdale has emphasized their different views on harvesting of timber--with the challenger seeking to reduce the cutting of forests. Lonsdale has called Hatfield a pawn of the timber barons, and Hatfield has responded that his opponent is polluting politics.

By contrast, the Oregon governor’s race is a close, conventional and cautious contest between two upwardly mobile statewide politicians--Secretary of State Barbara Roberts, the Democrat, and Atty. Gen. Dave Frohnmayer, the Republican. Among their differences: Roberts supports the Trojan shutdown; Frohnmayer does not.

Alaska

This is the only state where it is legal to grow and smoke your own marijuana. It has been that way for 15 more or less uneventful years. But the anti-drug mood of the nation has come to the frontier, and voters are divided on whether to make pot a crime.

The November ballot initiative, Measure No. 2, would make possession of even small amounts of marijuana a misdemeanor subject to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. The Bush Administration has taken a visible role behind the measure and drug control director William J. Bennett is heading here for several days of campaigning.

The wildest campaign in the entire Northwest is for governor of Alaska.

The Democrats have been straightforward enough, nominating former Anchorage Mayor Tony Knowles. But the GOP has plunged itself into a soap opera after the nomination of state Sen. Arliss Sturgulewski, also of Anchorage.

Former Republican Gov. Walter J. Hickel touched off the excitement with his bombshell decision to enter the race at the last minute as an independent. He rubbed it in by poaching Sturgulewski’s running mate as his own, forcing her to scramble and find a lieutenant governor candidate on short notice.

Since then, conservatives, never really happy with Sturgulewski, have rallied around Hickel. The GOP leadership is now so divided that Sturgulewski was unable even to win a perfunctory GOP pre-election endorsement last Saturday.

The circus-like events have overshadowed what was expected to be a hardheaded debate over environmental protection and resource development. Environmentalists strongly backed Knowles in the Democratic primary and hold forth the hope that he will stand in contrast to Alaska’s pro-development Republican congressional delegation. One member of that delegation, Sen. Ted Stevens, is expected to win reelection easily next month.

Washington

Although there are no big races, Washington is serving up a couple of smaller, lively ones of interest.

“Little Green” is the name some people have given to the latest ballot measure by which environmentalists seek to control growth in this booming state. The coalition behind Initiative Measure 547 begins its ballot argument this way: If we want to prevent Washington from becoming another Los Angeles, we must act now to protect our environment and manage growth.

What follows is a 53-page proposal to protect open space, force communities to plan ahead for growth and put some distance between growth issues and elected officials. Opponents see more red tape.

Northwesterners do not get to vote on the now famous spotted owl, but the closest thing to it is a bare-knuckle congressional campaign between first-term Democratic incumbent Jolene Unsoeld, who has tried to walk a middle-of-the-road path, and Republican challenger Bob Williams, a former state legislator and defeated candidate for governor, who is backed by many loggers.

Montana

Pathfinder or laughingstock?

Montana, which always seems to be chafing at government, now has a chance to take on that most oppressive government act of all, taxes.

Invoking nothing short of the Almighty and the freedom that is a covenant of the wide-open spaces, some tax rebels have qualified state Constitutional Amendment 55 for a November vote.

“We’re humbly grateful to God for this opportunity to offer our fellow Montanans the gift of freedom from arbitrary and discriminatory taxes,” their ballot argument says. If passed, the measure would eliminate state income, property and sales taxes, along with license fees and registration--replacing everything with a 1% charge on every $1 business transaction in the state.

Virtually the entire Establishment has lined up to ridicule the idea. “Proponents appeal to emotion instead of common sense,” the opposition ballot argument reads. “Like them, we love our state. Unlike them, we see no reason to adopt a tax that would make us the laughingstock of the nation.”

Idaho

The big news is the retirement of the state’s most powerful voice in Washington, U.S. Sen. James A. McClure, a conservative Republican.

Republican U.S. Rep. Larry E. Craig, who already represents half of the state, is the front-runner to replace McClure. The Democratic underdog is former state Sen. Ron Twilegar.

Finally, after a whithering few days in the national spotlight for his veto of anti-abortion legislation, Democratic Gov. Cecil D. Andrus is now considered a comfortable prospect for a fourth term.

Times researcher Doug Conner contributed to this story.