CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : Mix of Fear, Frustration Bring Strong Voter Discontent

Call it bewilderment. Call it anger.

California voters Tuesday cared more about abortion rights than any other issue, according to Times exit polls. But Dianne Feinstein, who used the issue as a sword in her gubernatorial campaign, lost.

They cared about crime, but hefty anti-crime packages also lost. They did not admit to worrying about taxes--but 12 of 14 bond issues were voted down, reversing historic trends.

The political atmosphere in California was rumbling with discontent Wednesday, as politicians and analysts read election results like would-be tea leaves. And the more they looked, the worse it seemed.

“For the life of me, find a common thread that united the three successful initiatives--gill nets, term limits and prison labor,” said Eugene Lee, a UC Berkeley political scientist.

Pollsters and politicians said Wednesday that the seemingly quixotic reactions were the result of voters’ commingling of two emotions--fear and frustration.

Voters, they said, were angry at public officials and simultaneously fretting about the tender economic situation in California and the rest of the nation.

The result: Voters approved offering incentives for earthquake retrofitting, banning gill nets in fishing, allowing prison inmates to work for private businesses, and limiting the terms in office of legislators and state constitutional officers--actions which did not carry a financial burden.

They also sanctioned a $400-million bond issue for veterans’ housing and an $800-million series of bonds for classroom construction.

But defeated were measures that might have skated through only a few months ago--college and prison construction bonds, housing and parks and recreation bonds. All told, six of the 28 measures on the ballot were approved and the remainder quashed.

Voter approval, officials in the various campaigns agreed, required a huge well of faith this year--and faith in elected officials was in short supply.

“Those seeking a yes vote walked into yesterday’s election with the deck stacked against them,” said Joel Fox, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Assn.

The results marked a huge turnabout from the last statewide election in June. Then, $5.14 billion in bonds were on the ballot--and all were approved by voters. This time, $5.77 billion in bonds were up for a vote--and only $1.2 billion prevailed.

Defeat was laid largely on the roiling national environment. Since June, when California voters doubled their own gas tax voluntarily, the Persian Gulf stalemate has sent gasoline prices soaring. Voters have been treated to a caustic, months-long federal budget wrangle. Indicators of a national recession seem to be multiplying. “You come to the conclusion that now is not the time to spend money. And if you lack confidence in those who are going to spend it, you’re going to be doubly conscious of spending,” said Steven A. Merksamer, a longtime associate of Gov. George Deukmejian.

The absence of confidence in elected officials and the direction in which they are taking the state rang clearly through Times voters’ surveys Tuesday.

Almost two of every five people, for example, felt that California has “gotten off on the wrong track,” and only 10% felt that the state was moving in the “right direction.” Almost twice as many people thought the economy was bad as thought it was good.

Almost two-thirds said the quality of life in California in the past decade has worsened, while a scant 15% thought life was better than a decade ago.

In a September survey by The Times, voters blamed the Legislature for “failing to do its job” and, in effect, forcing issues to be dealt with by initiative. Against that backdrop, voter approval of Proposition 140, the term limits initiative, seemed predictable.

The initiative will limit Assembly members to six years in office and senators and constitutional officers to eight years. It also slices legislative pensions and operating budgets.

Opponents of the measure said they are considering a legal challenge to the constitutionality of Proposition 140 and blamed voter cynicism for the term limits victory.

“If it had been a shorter ballot, we might have had a cleaner chance,”

Said Jay Ziegler, a spokesman for the campaign against term limits: “1990 signals a lot of people being very skeptical about issues appearing on the ballot. I think we were a victim of that in the end.”

The failure of most bond measures was seen by the anti-tax movement as evidence that the state’s vaunted anti-tax mood was swelling.

Over the last decade, voters had approved all but three of 47 bond measures presented to them. The failure of 12 this time marked the worst such record since the tax revolt decade of the 1970s.

But the defeat of Proposition 136 defied the argument that the ballot of 1990 saw a resurgence of anti-tax fervor. The proposition requiring two-thirds of the state’s voters to approve special taxes would have seemed fitting for a no-tax mood. Proponents blamed the defeat on a confusing ballot title: “State, Local Taxation.”

“People read it as a tax increase,” said Fox, who backed the measure.

But others suggested that voters were not taking a knee-jerk reaction to increasing spending but merely emphasizing their objections to the initiative process by voting no so often.

A recent Times survey showed that 72% of voters thought the initiative process was “out of control,” and 84% said the proliferation of initiatives meant that “an average voter cannot make an intelligent choice.”

Some saw a sobering development in the low voter turnout--54% as of Wednesday and expected to rise to 59% at most when all absentee votes are calculated. That would be among the lowest turnout rates since the century began, and several analysts blamed the initiatives for turning off voters.