Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2007 | 4:41 a.m.
A New Jersey proposal to borrow $450 million for stem cell research, one of the nation's most ambitious public efforts to fund the research, trailed slightly Tuesday in one of the most closely watched state ballot questions.
In other action at the polls, Utah voters were considering the country's first statewide school voucher program open to all children, not just those from low- or middle-income families. And in Oregon, residents were deciding whether to hike the cigarette tax to pay for health care for kids who don't have it.
The New Jersey proposal, which drew opposition from anti-abortion groups and the Roman Catholic Church, trailed by fewer than 10 percentage points with about three-quarters of precincts reporting.
The measure was placed on the ballot by the Legislature with strong backing from multimillionaire Gov. Jon Corzine, who spent about $200,000 of his own money on ads promoting the ballot question.
New Jersey already had approved spending $270 million to build stem cell research facilities.
Several states are competing in stem cell research. California approved spending $3 billion on stem cell research, Connecticut has a $100 million program, Illinois spent $10 million and Maryland awarded $15 million in grants.
The Utah voucher program would grant $500 to $3,000, depending on family income, for each child sent to private school. The hotly disputed voucher law won approval by one vote in the Republican-controlled Legislature in February but was suspended before taking effect when opponents gathered more than 120,000 signatures to force a referendum.
Early returns from rural counties, where polls indicated strong opposition to the proposal, showed about 65 percent of voters against it.
Experts said a green light in Utah could lead to similar programs in Texas, Arizona, Louisiana and elsewhere.
The referendum is the first statewide vote on vouchers in the country since 2000. There have been 10 state referendums on various voucher programs since 1972, according to the National School Boards Association. Each time, vouchers or tuition tax credits were voted down by an average margin of better than two to one.
Among the other measures on ballots Tuesday:
- Oregon voters were determining whether to raise the cigarette tax by 84.5 cents a pack - to $2.02 - to fund health insurance for about 100,000 children now lacking coverage. Tobacco companies opposing the measure outspent supporters by a 4-1 margin, contributing nearly $12 million.
- Texans authorized up to $3 billion in bonds over 10 years to create a cancer research center. The proposal was pushed by cycling champion and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong and opposed by some fiscal conservatives.
- Voters in the northeast Ohio city of Streetsboro, where a 19-year-old fell short of reaching a runoff in the mayoral primary last May, raised the legal age to run for mayor or council from 18 to 23.
- In Denver, voters were asked whether to make the private use and possession of marijuana the city's lowest law enforcement priority. Elected officials and police said it would have little effect since state and federal law supersede local law decriminalizing the drug.
In 2005, Denver passed an initiative making possession of small amounts of marijuana legal. It's had little effect. Police and prosecutors continue to follow state law, which marijuana proponents tried but failed to change through a vote last year.
- Residents of Hailey, Idaho, a former mining town with about 3,500 registered voters, were deciding whether to relax marijuana restrictions. The broadest proposal, which would run afoul of state and federal laws, aims to legalize possession outright for adults, while three others are meant to shift law enforcement's focus to other offenses.
- The Passamaquoddy Indians were asking approval to operate a racetrack casino with up to 1,500 slot machines in the town of Calais, Maine, where downturns in the seafood and paper industries have made the economy the worst in the state. The question trailed slightly with about three-quarters of precincts reporting.
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Associated Press writers Tom Hester Jr. in Trenton, N.J., Brock Vergakis in Salt Lake City, Kelley Shannon in Austin, Texas, Glenn Adams in Augusta, Maine, and Joe Milicia in Cleveland contributed to this report.
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