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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LAURIE HENRY, 32, single mother of two supported by Aid to Families With Dependent Children, a former teacher’s assistant and aspiring teacher who lives in Van Nuys:

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I think some of the issues maybe the elected representatives should vote on because they’re too complicated and there’s too many different sides to them for the common people to understand. I think it’s easier for the legislators to put it on our shoes than to say they made a mistake and then get voted out of office if they make the wrong choice.

This booklet here, I was reading it and I almost fell asleep. It gives you the background stuff, but then when you’re finished with it, you’re still wondering which way to go. Because, like, it’s too much information--but then it’s not enough, you know? And if you go just with your gut instinct, you’re going to make a decision but you’re still going to wonder, is it the right choice?

I would say I really care about the one where they say they’re updating the facilities of juvenile halls and everything. I think that’s something that should be voted yes on, and I think they should update it for the kids so that they don’t have to live crowded in . . . with buildings that aren’t earthquake safe.

It interests me because I was dealing with kids for a long time as a teacher’s aide. I haven’t necessarily dealt with a lot of bad kids, but I would think that it’s our duty once the kids are in a place where they have to go, for them to be safe, regardless of what brought them there. . . .

We’re spending all this money trying to decide these other issues that are really not important, when the main issue is the people who are homeless on the street. That’s the main issue that we should be focusing on--trying to make America a country where there are no people lying on the street sleeping and you have to pass by and look the other way so they won’t ask you for a quarter.