Vote Against King Day May Cost Arizona a Super Bowl : Racial issue: The NFL president says he’ll ask league owners to move the 1993 game site. Backers of the holiday say network TV caused a backlash.

Arizona’s on-again, off-again holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was off again Wednesday, the victim of a narrow defeat at the polls that threatened to cost this city the 1993 Super Bowl.

In the wake of the defeat Tuesday of two King Day propositions, National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said it was not “in the best interests of the NFL” to hold the football game in Phoenix and he will ask league owners to move it to another city.

Some observers blamed the potential loss of the game, first mentioned during a televised NFL game Sunday, for setting off a voter backlash that defeated the King Day proposal.

“Arizona has not seen the last of this (King Day holiday) issue,” said Terry Hudgins, campaign president for the Martin Luther King Better America Committee, a group that fought for a paid holiday. “We’ll be back.”

Voters on Tuesday defeated by a 3-1 margin a proposition that would have created a King Day at the expense of Columbus Day. And they rejected by a percentage point Proposition 302, which called for a paid King Day as well as a paid Columbus Day.

With 99% of the precincts reporting, Proposition 302 was losing 522,840 to 511,017, or 50 to 49%.

Cloves Campbell, publisher of The Arizona Informant, a weekly newspaper serving the black community in Phoenix, said black leaders will meet today to determine what steps to take next. “They are not ready to throw up their hands” he said. “They are ready to talk it over and regroup.”

Hudgins and others blamed CBS Sports and the NFL for the defeat after a televised report Sunday said Arizona’s Super Bowl would be moved if voters did not approve the holiday. The news, which aired during halftime of the Phoenix Cardinals-Miami Dolphins football game, was denied Monday by local Super Bowl organizers.

But Hudgins said voters who perceived the announcement as “economic blackmail” may have cast ballots opposing the holiday in protest of the threat.

However, other black leaders said the Super Bowl news could not have made that big a difference. State Sen. Carolyn Walker, a Phoenix Democrat who is one of three black legislators, said she knew the vote would be within a point or two.

“It simply proves what everyone outside the state has been saying about us. I keep saying we are not racist and not bigoted. But the numbers show we are,” she said.

The King Day controversy was first thrust into the national spotlight by then-Gov. Evan Mecham shortly after he took office in 1987 when he canceled a paid King holiday established by his predecessor. Mecham, who was later impeached and removed from office, proclaimed the third Sunday in January to be King Day/Civil Rights Day.

In September, 1989, legislators approved a King holiday and eliminated the paid Columbus Day holiday, a move that outraged Italian-Americans. A few days later a petition drive was launched, which resulted in the soundly defeated proposition creating a King Day at the expense of Columbus Day.

After Phoenix was awarded the 1993 Super Bowl in March, community leaders lobbied for further action on the holiday in hopes of avoiding any problems with the league. Legislators responded in May by passing another bill creating a paid King Day as well as a paid Columbus Day.

But King Day foes, led by Mecham, launched another drive that placed that law on the ballot for voter approval.

Walker said legislators could take up the issue again but they might be wise to let the matter rest awhile. Leadership from the executive office could be lacking, because although both gubernatorial candidates supported a paid King holiday, that race was still up in the air.

Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard, a Democrat, and Phoenix developer Fife Symington, a Republican, each garnered 49% of the vote Tuesday in the race for governor, forcing an unprecedented runoff election which may not occur until spring.

Retiring Gov. Rose Mofford, the secretary of state who took office when Mecham was impeached two years ago, was expected to stay on as a caretaker after her term expires in January.

PASADENA NEXT STOP?--NFL executives and owners indicate the game may be moved to the Rose Bowl. C1