13 Initiatives Are Qualified for June Ballot, Including 8 From Legislature

SACRAMENTO —  California voters will be asked to decide at least 13 ballot propositions in the June primary election, Secretary of State March Fong Eu announced on Wednesday.

The long list includes eight measures placed there by the Legislature, with five others qualified by voter petition signatures.

Although today is the official deadline for measures to qualify for the ballot, the deadline is routinely extended for measures initiated by the Legislature. Gov. George Deukmejian and members of the Legislature are still negotiating on millions of dollars worth of proposed bond issues.

These funds would be spent for such items as school construction, prisons and earthquake safety. Eu said she hopes the bond issue bills will be enacted by Feb. 1 to be in time to get on the June ballot.

The last of the voter petition measures to qualify on Wednesday is a reapportionment reform measure backed by San Mateo County Supervisor Tom Heuning and the League of Women Voters. It would create a 12-member commission that, though not empowered to draw its own reapportionment plan, would choose from among legislative and congressional districts plans submitted to it by private citizens.

The commission would be composed of five Democrats, five Republicans and two members not registered in either party. They would be chosen by a panel of three retired appellate court judges.

The initiative also would establish a list of strict standards by which the legislative districts are drawn based on federal 10-year census figures.

That task is now accomplished by the Legislature with the majority party drawing the districts, with an eye toward maintaining control from census to census.

A second reapportionment initiative will also be on the ballot. Backed by Marin County businessman Gary Flynn, it would require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature plus voter ratification of any legislative redistricting plan.

The other petition measures would:

- Make state law on the rights of defendants with tougher federal statutes and speed up criminal trials.

- Authorize a $1.9-billion rail transportation bond issue.

- Establish a $30-million wildlife fund to protect endangered species.

Among the measures put on the ballot by the Legislature, the biggest-ticket item is an $18.5-billion transportation improvement plan. The transportation plan, which represents a delicate compromise reached by Deukmejian and Democratic and Republican legislative leaders last summer, also would increase the state spending limit. If approved, the measure would raise state gas taxes--presently 9 cents a gallon--by another 5 cents a gallon next August, then by another 1 cent a year until 1994.

The seven other measures placed on the ballot by the Legislature would:

- Reform legislative ethics rules. It could also pave the way for a pay raise for legislators by creating an independent commission empowered to set legislative salaries.

- Issue $150 million in bonds for housing and homeless relief.

- Issue a $1-billion rail bond issue, which is a competing proposal to the rail measure put on the ballot through the petition route.

- Extend the time period for the governor to act on bills passed by the Legislature at the end of the first year of two-year sessions from 12 to 30 days.

- Allow severly disabled property owners to maintain the same tax rates when changing residences within the same county.

- Increase minimum fines for violations of the state chiropractic law.

- Make a technical change in the law, allowing revision of classes of peace officers on a list of special-circumstance murders calling for the death penalty.