A little shooting match

S.J. CAHN

Like many over the weekend, I listened as the political rhetoric

heated up concerning the phase-out of the 1994 federal crime bill and

its best-known provision, the ban on “assault rifles.”

At one point, I thought I heard Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic

presidential nominee, say that all police officers in the country

stood with him in wanting the ban continued.

I couldn’t track down that particular statement, but on the day

that the Federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of

1994 expired, Kerry did say:

“George Bush gave police officers his word that he would keep the

ban. But when it came time to extend it, Bush’s powerful friends in

the gun lobby asked him to look the other way. He just couldn’t

resist, and he said ‘sure.’ He chose to make the job of terrorists

easier and make the job of America’s police officers harder. That’s

wrong. Let me be very clear. I support the 2nd Amendment. I’ve been a

hunter all my life. But I don’t think we need to make the job of the

terrorists any easier.”

This seemed like a political statement that would be easy to check

here locally. And, no surprise, Kerry’s embrace of police officers is

a subtle spin of “all.”

Police officer organizations across the country -- including the

National Assn. of Police Organizations, which endorsed Kerry on

Monday, and the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police -- have

backed the ban, but whether that means individual officers

necessarily do ... well, no telling.

But who’s ever let such a gray area interfere with a good

political point?

Locally, the Newport Beach Police Department did support a

continuation of the ban, said Sgt. Steve Shulman.

“We think it was a missed opportunity for the federal government

to renew the federal assault weapons ban,” Shulman said, adding that

there doesn’t appear to be a good “sporting” use for the high-caliber

weapons.

California still has an even tougher law outlawing such weapons,

including bringing them into the state. That’s an issue to worry

about, though, Shulman said, because if the weapons become legal

elsewhere, there is the possibility of them coming into California

via the black market.

A measure of approval

Newport-Mesa voters have approved plenty of ballot measures in the

past years. A probably-not-complete list includes the school bond

Measure A, Greenlight Measure S (they turned down its competitor,

Measure T) and the community college Measure C . And that list

doesn’t include the countywide Measure W on the airport issue.

It turns out, that’s not a big surprise.

A report just issued by the Public Policy Institute of California

suggests that Newport-Mesa (perhaps especially the Newport part of

that equation) is quite in line with the type of community that votes

on local initiatives.

The study’s seven main findings are:

* Votes on initiatives, though prevalent across the state, were

concentrated in the Bay Area and the “South Coast” part of the state,

which given the focus on San Diego and El Toro -- which earned its

own section in the report, given the host of measures that led to

Measure W -- must mean this area.

* Local initiatives were more successful than statewide ones.

* The initiatives focused on typically “local” concerns such as

land-use and open-space concerns (think Greenlight).

* Charter cities, such as Newport Beach, that have the ability to

set requirements on ballot initiatives were more likely to have

initiative drives.

* The initiatives were most common in larger, economically diverse

cities, with the noted population level being 53,000.

* The less racially diverse a city was, the more likely it would

have ballot measures.

* And cities with multiple measures have high local revenue.

Sounds about like our area, right?

A few characteristics we don’t seem to share: Cities with more

Democrats were more likely to have initiatives (probably skewed by

the number of measures in San Francisco and Berkeley); cities that

have stable populations -- people living in their homes for five

years or more -- tended to have fewer ballot measures.

Interestingly, the study concludes there is little evidence that

ballot measures have become a “fourth branch of government,” that

they are driven by special interests or that they thrive when there

is low voter turnout.

I’ll leave it up to others to decide what that all might mean for

the Marinapark Measure L vote this November in Newport.

* S.J. CAHN is the managing editor. He may be reached at (949)

574-4233 or by e-mail at s.j.cahn@latimes.com.