Voters Get Last Word

Countless words--heartfelt and hired, meant to enlighten and meant to obscure--have gusted around the 15 statewide propositions on Tuesday’s ballot.

Voters soon will have the final word, putting a quick stop to the winds by quietly pushing styluses. Before they do, some questions not often posed during the long issue campaigns bear asking:

Are the propositions more than pet concerns that interest groups and ideologues have succeeded in elevating to the status of ballot questions? Do they really touch on the lives and direct interests of voters, and if so, how?

To get some indication of the answers, The Times invited seven voters to talk at length about the ballot issues and their own lives. All seven, most of whom live in the San Fernando Valley, had participated in a recent Times Poll. What they said has been condensed but remains in their own words.

The ballot measures they focused on as particularly meaningful included Proposition 205, which would provide $700 million in bonds to build and renovate county jails and juvenile detention facilities; Proposition 206, which would authorize $400 million in bonds for home and farm loans to military veterans (the Cal-Vet program); Proposition 209, which would abolish affirmative action in state and local government employment and state university admissions; Proposition 210, which would raise the minimum wage in the state to $5.75 an hour by March 1998; Propositions 214 and 216, which would provide closer government regulation of health maintenance organizations; and Proposition 215, which would legalize marijuana for medical use via doctor’s prescription.

Despite poring over the state-provided voter information pamphlet, all of those interviewed admitted to at least some confusion about what the ballot issues are truly about and blame misleading pro and con advertising.

Many also voiced resentment of the initiative process itself for their being called upon to make judgments about matters they don’t always entirely understand.

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JONATHAN MURAD, 23, actor and resident of North Hollywood.

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You end up with tons of different initiatives because people want to feel more involved than they are, and I don’t really know that that is a good thing. There’s one proposal about making all tax increases from fees and assessments answerable to a public vote, and that’s just ridiculous. Really, who wants to raise taxes? Nobody. So therefore if you give everybody the vote, it’s like telling a kid that they can eat anything they want. The kid is going to have a bad diet.

Will having the vote go against me on all these issues have an effect in my actual day-to-day life? Probably not. But, for instance, it would offend me if 209 was voted yes.

It’s difficult to say where these things do or do not intersect with your actual life. In my day-to-day life I don’t know where I may or may not intersect with somebody who has benefited from a veteran’s bond or somebody who has benefited from increased prison funds. Maybe the person who fixes my car or, not to use that stereotype, maybe the person who sells me stock has benefited from these kinds of things. I believe in a holistic society.

The minimum-wage increase is long overdue. I know that people argue there’s just been a federal increase, but the cost of living differs in every state. How much a minimum wage should be is directly related to the rate of inflation. People worry that increasing minimum wage will increase prices and so on. But when you’re talking about a minimum wage of $5.25, I mean, that’s ridiculous.

I took a job for awhile this past summer at a bookstore to have something to sort of structure my days around more and was making $5.30. And it was painful. It was really, really difficult and hard to meet expenses.

I’m lucky enough to be supplemented somewhat by my parents, and by things that I did in school, investments and things. Had I actually been relying on that paycheck for the totality of my funds--no way. I may be coming at this as an elite Easterner, but to work for $5.35, it’s tough to motivate yourself to give 100%. What you end up with are workers that don’t give any consideration to the job.