Women's Vote Key in I-200 Campaign
Women's Vote Key in I-200 Campaignby Tom Brune and David Postman
Seattle Times staff reporters
As the campaigns for and against Initiative 200 spend the summer sweating over the radio and television ads they'll run this fall, they have Evelyn Anshutz in mind.
They've probably never heard of Anshutz, a retired store clerk from Longview. But she's the prototypical target voter in the battle over I-200, which would ban preferences for minorities and women in state and local government and end the way public agencies in Washington practice affirmative action.
Anshutz was one of 400 likely voters who participated in a recent Seattle Times Washington Poll on affirmative action and I-200. While she said initially that she intended to vote for the initiative, she wavered after being given more information about its impacts.
"There is pro and con to that issue, so I am not too sure how I am going to vote," said Anshutz, who is white and 75.
Such wavering was not uncommon: When voters were read the wording that will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot, 64 percent said they would vote for I-200. But after hearing that the initiative would effectively end affirmative action as practiced here, while not affecting federal or private programs, that support fell to 49 percent.
That phenomenon - call it the second-guessing of a first impression - is the key to the success or failure of I-200 in the November election, the poll suggests.
The shift was especially pronounced among these groups: Democrats, labor-union members, public employees, those making less than $40,000 a year, baby boomers, families with children (particularly daughters) and, perhaps most importantly, women.
The shift potentially adds to the solid opposition to I-200 by people of color and Seattle residents.
However, even after second-guessing their first impressions, more white voters support I-200 than oppose it, the poll found. And in a state in which minorities make up at most 10 percent of the electorate, it is white voters who will determine whether this becomes the second state in the country, after California, to reverse course on affirmative action.
Even after the explanation of its impact, the initiative enjoys a plurality of 49 percent to 35 percent, with 17 percent who wouldn't or couldn't say how they would vote.
Between now and November, each side could spend $1 million or more to help those undecided voters make up their minds and to steal away other voters who already have a leaning.
The poll's findings suggest that both sides must develop messages that hit all the right buttons for those groups that show the most likelihood of second-guessing their stand on I-200, while bolstering their core supporters.
And of the voters whose support dropped, the most significant single group were white women such as Anshutz.
The most potent weapon of Initiative 200 is its ballot title, the description that will appear on the ballot when voters go into the booth.
That title reads: "The state shall not discriminate against - or grant preferential treatment to - any individual or group on the basis or race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting."
The wording is a proven winner: The same language won 54 percent of the vote in California in 1996.
The Times Washington Poll found it also does well here, with 64 percent in favor, 25 percent against and 11 percent who wouldn't or couldn't say.
The ballot title is a major cause of concern for the opposition because it initially robs even many allies of affirmative action.
For example, the title swayed Margaret Keech, 49, of Maple Valley, a publications coordinator at the University of Washington.
"I was thinking that it was either a new civil-rights bill or a continuation of the same kind of protection, if you will," said Keech, who is white.
But when told I-200 would effectively end affirmative action in state and local government - a theme the opposition is sure to stress - she immediately switched her vote to no.
"That made me uncomfortable," she said, because she feared affirmative action would be outlawed by popular vote as it was in California two years ago.
"I still know a lot of women who do the same amount of work and are as capable as men, and still do not get the same kind of pay," she said.
That second-guessing by Anshutz, Keech and others provides an opportunity for the opposition, say veterans of initiative campaigns. The No!200 campaign doesn't have to persuade voters that I-200 is bad; it just has to plant enough questions in voters' minds.
"It's easier to get someone to vote no than yes. And if you can confuse them, they are even more likely to vote no," said Tom McCabe, executive vice president of the Building Industry Association of Washington and active in several recent initiatives.
Political consultant John Giese says voters are cautious about changing laws by elections.
"When they go to the ballot box on these things, they really regard themselves as legislators for a day. They want it to be good public policy," he said. "So if they aren't sure, or have hesitations, then they either don't vote or vote no."
Sometimes, Giese said, the opposition campaign is as simple as repeating the stock phrase, "Why gamble with our children's future?"
It's clearly the strategy of No!200 to exploit voters' caution.
"The language of this initiative is so broad it's very unclear how far-reaching the impact will be. And no one, including proponents of the initiative, can accurately say what the consequences of the initiative will be," said Kelly Evans, No!200 campaign manager.
"Our job is to make sure people understand . . . it doesn't mean what it says."
No!200's message will likely resonate more with certain groups than others, the poll found.
Most likely to second-guess their first impressions are voters with the following characteristics (with many sharing more than one of these attributes):
-- Public employees had a 23-percentage-point drop from the first impression, resulting in 35 percent for and 47 percent against.
-- Tied with public employees were union members, who also showed a 23-point drop, to a split of 41 percent for and 40 percent against.
-- Support among baby boomers, ages 36-50, dipped 20 points from first impression, resulting in 43 percent for it and 38 percent against it. Boomers are about a third of the voters.
-- Independents also showed a 20-point dip, lowering support to 49 percent but boosting opposition to just 34 percent.
-- Those making less than $40,000 annually had a drop of 17 points, dampening support to 47 percent and increasing opposition to 35 percent.
-- Support among Democrats slipped 14 points, resulting to 42 percent for and 47 percent against.
-- Support among couples with children slid 16 points, to 43 percent for and 37 percent against. More specifically, support among voters with daughters fell 12 points to 39 percent, and support among those with both sons and daughters decreased 16 points, to 41 percent.
-- Support dropped in all nine of the state's congressional districts. The firmest yes vote is in the 9th District, covering parts of Pierce, King and Thurston counties. The slippage there was just 3 points, from 67 percent to 64 percent. The biggest drop came in one of the state's most conservative districts, the 4th, covering Yakima and Central Washington. There, support went from a statewide high of 73 percent to 49 percent.
Although all groups showed some movement, many started with high support and maintained a majority for I-200. Key among them were men, Republicans, age groups older and younger than the baby boomers, private-sector employees, workers who don't belong to unions, those making more than $40,000 a year, couples and singles with no children and those whose children are boys.
Women's vote key
Women will play a crucial role in the outcome of the election.
Their initial support for I-200, at 59 percent, is lower than that for men, 70 percent. But when they get the explanation of likely impact, their support drops to 43 percent, vs. 56 percent for men.
And unlike the other groups that showed movement, women make up about a half of the voters.
However, despite the fact that white women benefit more from affirmative action than any other group, they are not as solid in their opposition to I-200 as one might guess, the poll found.
Like men, about a half say they are not affected by affirmative action at all, according to the Seattle Times poll. And nearly the same proportion of men and women - around two-thirds - say they have not been discriminated against.
Indeed, many white women see affirmative action as primarily programs for minorities and not necessarily for women. That's a plus for the backers of I-200.
"I don't believe there will be a gender gap in this election," said John Carlson, co-chairman of the I-200 campaign.
Carlson said he expects opponents to "play that card," but "I don't think it is going to work."
"Most women think the rules should be the same for everybody," Carlson said. "Many of them are moms who don't want their sons or daughters being discriminated against."
On the other side, No!200's Evans conceded women will be a target of the opposition campaign. After all, she said, "White women are the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action."
However, Evans insisted, "It's not just about women losing opportunities. It's about programs that allow our daughters to have opportunities, and men all across the state have daughters."
Program seen as 'flawed'
The poll found that the public sees affirmative action as a flawed program. The I-200 campaign intends to take full advantage of that, while the opposition attempts to limit the damage.
More than three-quarters of those polled agreed that affirmative action is flawed and should be scrapped, or is good in principle but needs to be reformed.
And the poll found that the biggest concern about affirmative action is that it forces public agencies to select people for jobs or college admissions based on their race or gender instead of their qualifications.
Evans said the opposition campaign will acknowledge these concerns. And it will follow President Clinton's lead and sound the theme of "Mend it, don't end it."
Or, as Evans put it: "If there are things wrong, fix them. You don't end everything."
Carlson said initiative proponents intend to tap into the discontent by focusing on "well-qualified people who didn't get selected."
He explained: "This is an injustice when the well-qualified are not promoted, or hired or admitted to school. We think that will reinforce what a lot of people have seen in their lives."
At the same time, though, the poll found that nearly everyone agrees that discrimination continues. Ninety-three percent said there is still discrimination against minorities, and 80 percent said there is still discrimination against women.
The No!200 campaign already has warned that such discrimination may only get worse if affirmative action is rolled back - and it warns that 30 years of progress since affirmative-action laws were enacted may be undermined.
I-200 supporters put a different spin on it. Carlson said his backers accept that discrimination persists. But, he said, "They believe there are still problems in society, but that one way to get beyond those problems is to move beyond race. You can't move beyond that until you have color-blind laws."
Opponents of I-200 must woo white voters
Opponents of I-200 are banking on Washington's white voters to act differently from whites in California and Houston, the two other places where ballot measures similar to I-200 have been put to a test.
In those elections, exit polls showed that whites strongly supported the ballot measures in proportions similar to the vote registered in the Washington Poll after respondents were read only I-200's ballot title.
In California in 1996, 63 percent of white voters - 69 percent of the men and 56 percent of the women - supported Proposition 209. In Houston the next year, Proposition A won 64 percent of white voters - 72 percent of the men and 54 percent of the women.
Perhaps most significantly, those parallel results occurred despite very different ballot titles used in the two elections.
In California, the ballot title was virtually the same as the one Washington voters will face. Neither mentions affirmative action. But in Houston, the mayor and City Council rewrote the ballot description to say that it would "end the use of affirmative action for women and minorities." A judge recently ruled that the rewriting did not accurately reflect the measure and threw out the results of the election.
In Washington, the poll found many people are still grappling with just what they think affirmative action and I-200 really mean.
The ballot title did little to help Evelyn Anshutz understand what it would do.
"There was a lot in that initiative that I didn't understand," she said. Before she makes up her mind on how to vote, she said, "We'll find out more."
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Carl
Gutiérrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
e-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu