Voters Back Prop. 209, but Margin Declining

By BILL STALL

July 21, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES POLITICAL WRITER

A substantial majority of California voters continue to favor a ballot initiative to ban affirmative action programs in state and local government, the Los Angeles Times Poll has found, but the margin has declined for the first time in more than a year.

The poll reported that 59% of registered voters favor the measure, down from 66% in March. The numbers represent the first softening of support for the measure since the Times began polling on the issue in March 1995.

On other issues, Californians said they support the state Supreme Court’s recent ruling giving judges more discretion on sentencing repeat offenders. They oppose Assembly-passed measures to make gun permits more easily available and to rescind the helmet requirement for motorcycle riders. They are also overwhelmingly against gay marriage.

Californians continue to look with some gloom on how things are going in the state, on the health of the California economy and on the job their major elected officials are doing for them, acting poll director Susan Pinkus said.

But those attitudes are continuing to show improvement as the state makes a gradual recovery from the depth of the economic recession in 1992, when the popularity of Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and members of the California Legislature plummeted.

“There’s a feeling out there that California is turning around,” Pinkus said. “You can see that in the stabilization of the real estate market, in people feeling secure in their personal finances, and with unemployment the lowest it has been since 1991.”

Barely one-third of the poll participants said they believe that California is on the right track today, while 54% said the state is on the wrong track. But in September 1992, only 12% said the state was doing well while 80% said the state was off course.

Although Californians may not be overly optimistic about the state’s economic future in general, nearly two-thirds of the poll respondents consider their own financial conditions to be either fairly secure or very secure.

The poll also found that a majority of Californians oppose some of the keystone issues pushed by the Republican majority that took control of the state Assembly this past winter, including repeal of the motorcycle helmet law and a proposal to greatly increase the number of people who could carry concealed handguns.

And by a narrow margin, 39% to 36%, Californians now say that Democrats can do a better job of handling California’s problems than Republicans. Republicans held a 36%-34% edge going into the 1994 election, when they made major gains in the Legislature.

The Times Poll surveyed 1,570 California adults, including 1,267 registered voters, by telephone during the period July 13-16. For both samples, the survey had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

As the 1996 election campaign heats up, California political experts expect the battle over affirmative action to be one of the most controversial issues, somewhat akin to the emotional battle in 1994 over Proposition 187, the initiative measure to deny state benefits to illegal immigrants. Proposition 187 passed with 59% of the vote.

Although the measure is called the “California civil rights initiative” by its authors, many California residents will know the proposed constitutional amendment in coming months as Proposition 209. Its official ballot title will be: “Prohibition against discrimination or preferential treatment by state and other public entities.”

The official description declares that the measure prohibits state and local government and public education systems in California “from discriminating against or giving preferential treatment to any individual group” in public employment, education or public contracting on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.

Wilson has been a major proponent and the state Republican Party helped the sponsors finance the signature campaign that got the measure on the ballot. The California Democratic Party is opposed to the measure and has made plans to mount a campaign against it designed primarily to appeal to women.

The 59%-29% support for Proposition 209 was registered after poll participants were first read the description of the measure that will appear on the ballot.

Generally, men are more supportive of Proposition 209 than women, 65%-27% compared to 55%-31%. Registered Republicans back it 71%-19%, Democrats support it 51%-36% and independents are in favor 58%-35%. The measure even is leading among those who define themselves as political liberals, 47%-40%.

But when supporters were told that the measure would eliminate state-run affirmative action programs, support dropped 11%. Overall, opposition then rose from 29% to 40%, with 43% still saying they would for the initiative.

“This may bode well for the No on 209 campaign,” Pinkus said. “The opponents have always argued that if people understood the effects of the measure, they would realize that it doesn’t protect all people from discrimination. But the ‘no’ campaign has to get out their message and position themselves so that people are listening to their arguments. I would not say that this initiative is a fait accompli.”

The falloff in support since the March survey is generally across the political and ideological spectrum, including Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives.

So far, neither side has launched any advertising campaign, although the issue has frequently been in the news. Usually, substantial numbers of voters do not make up their minds on ballot measures until the weeks immediately preceding the election.

The poll was taken as Wilson and the California Legislature were concluding negotiations on the 1996-97 state budget and deciding other key issues. It followed a publicity blitz in which Wilson proposed increasing the state budget by hundreds of millions of dollars to reduce public school class size in California.

This is the first year that Republicans have exercised full control of the Assembly after winning a majority of seats in 1994. Also, the Assembly under Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) has received considerable attention for approving items on the conservative agenda.

Most of those measures have been killed or are bottled up in the state Senate, which remains under Democratic control.

The public standing of the governor and Legislature continued to rise slightly from previous surveys, but not by much. Wilson’s job approval rating went from 36% in March to 39%; 54% disapproved of his performance, compared to 56% in March.

The Legislature got a 36% approval rating in the new survey, while 47% of respondents said the lawmakers were not doing a good job. That compares with 31% approval and 48% disapproval in March.

Both California U.S. senators have positive approval ratings, however, and those ratings also improved in the past four months.

Californians approved the job being done by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from San Francisco, by 48% to 37%, and of Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from Marin County, by 44% to 34%.

For the first time, the poll sought to measure support for the new Assembly speaker and the job the lower house has done this year. But 63% of those surveyed said they did not know enough about Pringle to rate him. Pringle won approval from 18% and disapproval from 19%.

By a margin of 38% to 31%, the respondents said they did not support the Republican agenda in the Assembly.

Not surprisingly, registered Republicans were strongly supportive, 61% to 13%, while Democratic voters were opposed, 60% to 12%.

However, Californians did register solid opposition to some of the key measures in the conservative agenda that won Assembly passage this year but failed to get through the Senate.

By 68% to 27%, they opposed repeal of the state law that requires motorcycle drivers and riders to wear safety helmets. By 66% to 29%, they opposed an Assembly-passed bill that would have allowed virtually any California adult--with some exceptions--to be eligible for a permit to carry a concealed handgun.

Californians remain supportive, by 75% to 21%, of the three-strikes law that provides sentences of 25 years to life in prison for criminals convicted of a third serious felony crime. A ballot measure to implement the law won 72% of the vote in the 1994 general election.

But they also agree with a recent California Supreme Court decision that trial judges should have the discretion to disregard a previous felony when sentencing a criminal under the three-strikes law for a relatively minor nonviolent crime such as petty theft.

The Assembly has passed a bill to restrict such judicial discretion, but the bill has failed to pass the Senate. Senate Democrats have proposed that the three-strikes law be amended to exempt criminals whose third strike is either petty theft or check forgery.

In the poll, 63% thought judges should have discretion in sentencing and 31% did not.

On another issue, Californians disapprove of same-sex marriages, 60% to 31%. Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives and moderates all were opposed. Only those who describe themselves as liberals supported same-sex marriages, by 47% to 41%.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

What Californians Think

A majority of state voters still favor Proposition 209, which would bar discrimination or preferential treatment in state employment and public education, but support has slipped since March.

*--*

Proposition 209 Now March ’96 March ’95 *Favor 59% 66% 66% *Oppose 29% 22% 26% *Don’t know 12% 12% 8%

*--*

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Among all Californians, these were the views on other state issues.

On the state Supreme Court giving judges sentencing discretion in three-strikes cases:

* Agree: 63%

* Disagree: 31%

* Don’t know: 6%

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On a proposal to let virtually anyone carry a concealed gun:

* Approve: 29%