Voters OK Half-Cent Sales Tax Extension; Other Measures Trail : Elections: Proposition 172 holds solid lead with half of vote counted. Six other ballot items seem headed for defeat. GOP candidates lead in two special Senate races.

California voters bucked a 15-year anti-tax tide Tuesday by approving an annual sales tax levy to raise about $1.5 billion to support fire and police departments and other local public safety programs.

With more than half the vote counted in the special statewide election, Proposition 172 maintained a solid lead of about 5 to 4.

But at least five of the six other statewide ballot measures appeared headed for defeat, including the other major tax-related measure, Proposition 170, which was losing by more than 2 to 1. That measure would have made it easier for local school districts to pass bond issues to raise funds to build schools.

Two weeks ago, opinion polls indicated that public sentiment was almost equally divided on Proposition 172, which makes permanent the temporary half-cent sales tax increase approved by the Legislature and Gov. Pete Wilson in 1991 to help offset a state budget deficit.

But the measure appeared to get a boost in the days since the California wildfires started. Much of the campaign centered around city and county police and fire officials claiming their budgets--and services--would be decimated if the tax measure failed.

Also Tuesday, Republicans won one Northern California state Senate seat and appeared likely to win a second.

Conservative Maurice Johannessen triumphed in a runoff election of a sprawling Northern California district formerly held by state Sen. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena). Following legislative reapportionment, Thompson ran for election, and won, in a neighboring district that was more amenable to Democratic candidates.

On the San Francisco Bay Peninsula, former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell of Stanford led the field to assume the state Senate seat of Republican Becky Morgan of Los Altos, who resigned from the Legislature.

Campbell, a moderate who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate last year, needed to collect more than 50% of the votes in a nine-candidate field to win the seat outright in the primary balloting. Campbell was maintaining a margin of about 56% with more than half the vote counted.

Californians voted on a total of seven measures on the statewide ballot, including Proposition 174, the voter initiative to institute a voucher plan for state aid to parents to send their children to private and parochial schools.

Wilson supported both Proposition 170 and Proposition 172, and he campaigned extensively throughout California in the closing weeks of the campaign for the sales tax extension, usually appearing with local law enforcement and fire department officials.

The governor had to lobby fellow Republicans in the Legislature in order to win the two-thirds vote needed to get Proposition 170, the bond issue measure, on the ballot.

Wilson called the election last spring for the purpose of allowing voters to decide whether to make permanent the half-cent state sales tax levy, in effect since the summer of 1991.

If voters had said no, California would have faced another fiscal crisis: The sales tax would expire Jan. 1, and local governments would be deprived of that income.

Defeat of Proposition 170 continues the status quo as it has existed for a century in California: the requirement that a two-thirds margin of those voting in local school district elections approve school district general obligation bonds.

In recent years, it has become more difficult to pass local school bond issues, usually for the purpose of raising money to build schools. Officials said that 90% of bond issues in recent years received more than a majority vote, but half were not approved because they did not get the two-thirds margin needed.

One result in the past 15 or 20 years has been the use of state bond issues to provide state aid to local districts for school construction. State bond issues require only a majority vote to pass. However, getting more state bond issues has become problematic as the state’s level of bonded debt has increased to levels of concern to state officials and bond rating companies.

The major opposition to both local finance measures came from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation, named for the late co-author of Proposition 13, the 1978 property tax cut initiative.

Foundation President Joel Fox of Los Angeles said it was appropriate that only a third of the voters could block passage of a school bond issue because repayment of bonds would be the primary responsibility of a minority of people: the homeowners who pay the property tax.

Supporters noted that California is one of only four states that requires a two-thirds vote to pass a school bond issue.

Opponents called 170 a direct attack on Proposition 13, which sharply reduced property tax collections in California and imposed a two-thirds vote requirement on the raising of some local taxes. But the two-thirds requirement for bond issues was put in the state Constitution long before Proposition 13.

As for the sales tax extension, Fox said:

“It seems illogical to me that the Legislature decided one way to stimulate business in California was to give business a sales tax break, yet they cannot make the logical jump that if they give consumers a sales tax break, that should be good for the economy too.”

The universal message in support of Proposition 172 was that the budgets of police and fire departments, sheriffs’ offices and other public safety agencies throughout California would be decimated if the measure failed.

The bill passed by the Legislature stipulated that proceeds from the half-cent sales tax go into a fund to finance public safety operations. But there was nothing in the law that prevented local governments from diverting money now spent for public safety programs to other fiscally drained county and municipal operations.

Other measures on the statewide ballot:

* Proposition 168: Would have made it easier for local governments to build low-income housing projects.

* Proposition 169: Would have allowed the Legislature to lump all state budget implementation measures, the so-called budget trailer bills, into one piece of legislation.

* Proposition 171: Owners of houses damaged or destroyed in a disaster may retain their old property tax assessment when they rebuild or buy a replacement home. This measure would allow them to retain their old assessment even if they build or buy in another county in California. Proposition 171 split the vote almost evenly and was too close to call late Tuesday.

* Proposition 173: Would have authorized the sale of bonds with the proceeds providing mortgage guaranty insurance for low- and moderate-income first-time home buyers.