Hands Off the Health Initiative

Orange County supervisors should not be trying to short-circuit a planned November ballot initiative directing how tobacco windfall money be spent. The supervisors had their chance for input for many months; their intransigence led to their ill-advised rejection of a compromise. Now it should be up to the voters to decide.

At least Supervisor Cynthia Coad had the sense to backpedal from her earlier trial balloon. That would have urged her colleagues to refuse to put on the ballot an initiative drawn up by county health care groups and supported by a lengthy and diverse conglomeration of organizations and individuals. Instead, the supervisors last week voted to give the measure to the voters for a decision, and then filed a lawsuit trying to ensure the voters don’t get to see the initiative.

The county is expected to receive $765 million over 25 years from the settlement reached between the nation’s major tobacco companies and the states’ attorneys general. The proper way to spend that money is clear: on health care. The bounty from out of the blue can be used for a range of health care needs, including persuading those who do not smoke never to start.

But three of the five supervisors did not see a sign labeled “health care” light up; they saw a sign labeled “debt reduction.” And the county already has begun using this year’s allotment by spending $38 million to pay down debt incurred in getting out from under the 1994 bankruptcy.

After trying for months to persuade supervisors to change their position, a coalition of health care advocates and the senior citizens’ group AARP filed a ballot initiative with more than 100,000 signatures.

It had not been a secret that some supervisors were looking for a way to keep the initiative off the ballot on the grounds that it violates the state Constitution. It’s worth recalling that even though a judge mused about the possibility that the anti-airport initiative Measure F was unconstitutional, it was allowed to stay on the March ballot. The supervisors doubted that Measure F, which three of them opposed, would pass muster as well, but eventually they let the voters decide.

The supervisors’ past arguments against the health care spending option have been unconvincing. In the form submitted to the registrar of voters, the proposal calls for spending 20% of the tobacco money on law enforcement and 80% on services to seniors and the disabled, doctors’ care for the poor, community health clinics and helping hospitals that don’t get paid for providing emergency care.

Supervisors should stop looking for ways to keep the initiative off the ballot. Supervisors Tom Wilson and Todd Spitzer led the way last week by actually endorsing the initiative. If those opposed want to write a statement opposing it and submit it to the voters, fine. But looking for loopholes before the voters get a look is gamesmanship.