The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, November 7, 1984 - Page 9
Voters defeat
controversial ballot
proposals
PState
Prop. A
loses;
wins
From staff and wire reports
State ballot Proposal A, which would
have amended the state Constitution to
allow legislative review of all state
policies, was defeated yesterday by a
respectable margin while Proposal B's
approval by a 2-1 margin will restore
the state's natural resources trust fund
which has been depleted by state of-
ficials to ward off a financial crisis.
-Nationwide, West Virginia and
Missouri voters were approving state
lottery measures and while District of
Columbia voters passed a measure
guaranteeing shelter for the homeless
as voters in 44 states considered a wide
variety of ballot measures yestterday.
In California, 82-year-old Howard
Jarvis, author six years ago of
*proposition 13 which kicked off tax
revolts in several states, offered voters
a chance to slash taxes again and make
it tougher to pass future increases.
Other statewide proposals in Califor-
nia would sharply reduce welfare and
health benefits, reapportion the state
legislature in a way likely to tilt power
to the Republicans, and urge the
federal government to mandate ballots
:in English only.
A state Equal Rights Amendment in
Maine was trailing in early returns.
With 7 percent of precincts reporting,
the measure was losing by a 71 percent
'to 29 percent margin. If approved,
Maine would become the 17th state to
adopt a state ERA.
Voter 's Choice
proposal fails
by wide margin
Associated Press
Editors of Dixoi (Illinois's) Evening Telegraph scan what is probably the first newspaper to hit the streets proclaiming
President Reagan's landslide victory over Walter Mondale.
Free zone
(Continued from Page 1)
bor Coordinator and University em-
ployee.
"I think the Ann Arbor voters are
confused. They've been inundated with
a lot of scary, slick material," she said.
Michael said she didn't know if free
zone supporters would attempt to place
the proposal on the ballot again. "We
may well bring it up again," she said.
"Winning against the kind of resources
CARB has takes time," she said.
Campaign finance reports which
were filed with the county clerk's office
state that CARB had spent $37,073 by
Oct. 21 to defeat the proposal. By that
date, the Campaign for a Nuclear Free
Ann Arbor spent $3,834.
LAST NIGHT, Bob Bensen, Ann Ar-
proposal 1
bor Area Chamber of Commerce
president said about $150,000 had been
spent to insure a CARB victory. The
Chamber had voiced opposition to the
free zone.
A spokesperson for free zone suppor-
ters said they had spent about $7,500 in
their campaign.
"It's hard to run against so much
money and the establishment," said
Jonathan Ellis, an Ann Arbor resident
and free zone supporter.
ALTHOUGH THE free zone lost,
campaign worker Justin Schwartz, a
University history and philosophy of
science graduate student said he felt his
group's campaign was victory.
"We lost the election but we won a lot
more," he said, explaining that free
)ses in city
zone supporters were able to establish a
grass roots organization to fight for the
peace movement.
"I'm delighted," said Benson.
"Primarily because what the people of
Ann Arbor said today is they want to
keep us a leading technology and
research (center) in the U.S.," he ad-
ded.
The proposal was put on the ballot in
August after petitions bearing 8,000
signatures from free zone supporters
were submitted to the city clerk's of-
fice.
If: the proposal had passed, Ann Ar-
bor would have become the first city in
the nation in which nuclear weapons
reserach is actually conducted, to be a
free zone.
By GREG HUTTON
and KEVIN KELLY
Proposal C, which University of-
ficials said would seriously cut state
support to schools, was losing at
presstime last night by a 2-1 margin.
"Proposal C was bad for Michigan -
Michigan was spared a significant
trauma," said James Briney, director
of Promote Michigan, an organization
which campaigned extensively against
the measure.
PROPOSAL C, called Voters' Choice
by proponents, would roll back state
and local taxes to their Dec. 31, 1981
levels, and require voters to approve
any future tax increase.
The widely respected Citizens
Research Council said the measure
would cut state revenues by $927 million
in fiscal year 1986, local property tax
revenues by $345 million and local in-
come tax revenues by about $40 million.
Fee hikes for licenses and permits
would also require approval by popular
vote unless first approved by four-fifths
of the state legislature. Income tax for
non-residents would be limited to one
half of one percent.
OPPONENTS of Proposal C said the
loss in revenue would cause serious
damage to universities, schools, and
local and state governments.
University officials have said that if
the measure passes, a tuition increase
of as much as 21 percent could be
necessary to offset losses in state fun-
ding.
Jim DeMar, a leading backer of the
proposal, said the group will not give up
but try again in 1986.
"WE WERE right. We had the issue
of the day and they were scared to
death," DeMar said.
He added that the group focused on
the wrong areas and should have
spoken to more of a grass roots
population.
"I think we did a poor job of selling
it," he said, adding that Promote
Michigan outspent them by 20-1.
Jim O'Toole, media relations director
for Promote Michigan, said it was good
the proposal was defeated because it
showed people were not simply voting a
partisan ticket.
"Michigan voters knew what they
were doing," O'Toole said. "People
were not willing to vote for Proposal C
because it changed our basic form of
government and that's never been done
before."
Ken Benjamin, a volunteer for the
Voter's Choice campaign said last
night, "I don't know if the State of
Michigan deserves our money to be
spent on promoting Proposal C (in
1986)."
Since the proposal didn't pass now, he
added, let the state pay high taxes.
Reagan sweeps the
(Continued from Page 1)
The president insisted all day he was
superstituously avoiding predictions,
but felt confident enough to outline his
goals for a second term in an interview
With the Washington Post. He said he
would push again for congressional ap-
proval of a balanced budget amen-
dment to the Constitution and the right
to veto individual sections of spending
bills, two measures he wants to help
reduce federal spending.
He also renewed his call for a defense
system in space designed to shoot down
missiles.
GERALDINE Ferraro told her staff
last night to be proud of their effort and
that "no one should shed any tears" as
her hopes of becoming the first woman
vice president were crushed by the
Republican landslide.
Ferraro apparently hurt the
Democratic presidential ticket more
than she helped it, according to network
television exit polling in yesterday's
election.
"It appears Ferarro was not a
,positive factor and could have been a
negative factor," said Sheldon
Gawiser, an NBC News poll
spokesman.
Election officials across the country
reported a heavy voter turnout in the
first hours after polls opened yesterday
morning, with long lines at many
b balloting sites attributed to the
presidential race, close local contests
and fair weather throughout much of
the nation.
Mondale, the Democratic challenger,
hoped for a storybook upset. He cast his
ballot in North Oaks, Minn., then retur-
nred home to await the results that
pollsters - even his own - suggested
r would bring an early and lopsided
defeat.
A few hours later, the president and
his wife Nancy flew more than 100
miles by helicopter from Los Angeles to
cast their absentee ballots in Solvang,
Calif., a small town of 2,125 people, near
their mountaintop ranch.
For more than a year, voters had
been bombarded by speeches, brochur-
es, television commericials and radio
advertisements extolling the virtues of
the conservative Republican president
or his Democratic opposition.
Registration - estimated at about
125 million - reached record levels,
with both parties and hundreds of
organizations - from advocates of a
nuclear weapons freeze to real estate
brokers - conducting expensive sign-
up campaigns. Democrats hoped to
enroll the nation's dispossessed,
especially blacks and Hispanics.
BUT THE Republicans outspent the
Democrats and claimed to outdo them
in rokaic now. VnP ThA GOiP
people and send combat troops to Cen-
tral America.
THE DEMOCRATIC nominee's five-
minute advertisement said he
preferred to lose an election cam-
paignipg on decency than to win one
based on self-interest.
If the candidates were different, so,
too, did the course of their campaigns
vary.
The only suspense among
Republicans was whether the president
would seek election to a second term
that would begin when he was 73 years
old. He ended that suspense in January,
and, without opposition for his party's
nomination, launched a campaign
proclaiming that "America's back"
from economic hard times and
diplomatic difficulties of the Carter-
Mondale administration.
REAGAN TOUTED the economic
recovery of the past four years, rarely
mentioning record budget deficits but
claiming credit for reduced interest
rates and lower inflation.
By contrast, Mondale, the early front-
runner, was nearly denied the
Democratic nomination in a series of
primary and caucus upsets, and was
forced into a long campaign against
Sen. Gary Hart and the Rev. Jesse
Jackson that wasn't finally settled until
the Derr'cratic National Convention in
July.
Mondale made history in picking
Ferraro, a congresswoman from the
Queens borough of New York, as the
first woman named to a major political
party ticket. It was the type of bold
stroke that Mondale's critics said he
was incapable of.
BUT FERRARO quickly became
embroiled in a controversy over family
finances, and by the time the Reagan-
Bush ticket was renominated at the
Republican National Convention in
August, the president was back atop a
healthy lead in the polls.
Mondale played one other campaign
gamble, declaring that a tax increase
country
was inevitable no matter who won the
election, and promising his tax hike
would be fair, while Reagan's would
benefit his "wealthy friends."
But Reagan retorted he would accept
tax increases only as a "last resort"
and ridiculed Mondale as "Coach Tax
Hike." Mondale soon discovered that
Democratic governors and members of
Congress were maintaining their
distance from him and his tax increase
proposal.
MIDWAY THROUGH the fall cam-
paign, Mondale looked like a losing
candidate for certain, unable even to
entice some Democratic governors and
congressional candidates to share the
campaign stage.
But a month before the election, in
Louisville, Ky., on Oct. 7, came the first
of two nationally broadcast debates.
Reagan occasionally seemed unsure
of himself, groping for words and
stumbling through his closing
statement. Overnight, Mondale began
cutting into Reagan's lead in the polls.
Democrats began speculating openly
that at 73, the president might be too old
to serve another term.
And overnight - like "somebody
threw a switch," Mondale said - the
Democrats' crowds grew larger and in
state after state, polls showed he was
gaining.
Reagan's aides brushed aside his
faltering debate performance as the
product of poor staff performance. Two
weeks later, after a more convincing
showing in his second debate against
Mondale on foreign policy, Reagan
regained his earlier lead in the polls.
Mondale was staggered a few days
later when it was reported that cam-
paign chairman James Johnson had
told him privately that the president's
lead appeared insurmountable.
Reagan's advisers began talking of a
50-state sweep that would swell
Republican ranks in Congress and
strengthen the president's hand in the
new House and Senate.
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Special Guests:
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Important Announcement for Students in LSA,
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Thursday, November 8