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Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub

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September 10, 2003

Poll: voters oppose license bill

More than eight out of every ten voters say three issues are “very important” to them in deciding whom they will support for governor on Oct. 7: the state’s economy, the public schools, and reducing the budget deficit, according to a Field Poll released today. Other top issues include health care, taxes, crime, electricity and illegal immigration.

Several issues were more important to Bustamante voters than to others: the schools, health care, the interests of women, the environment, gun control, the interests of minorities, and abortion.

Issues that were more important to Schwarzenegger and McClintock voters: reducing the deficit, taxes, encouraging business, electricity, illegal immigration (including the recently signed driver’s license bill), the vehicle license fee, workers compensation, Proposition 13, gasoline prices, and “upholding family values” (cited by 82 percent of Schwarzenegger supporters!)

By a 59-34 margin, voters disapprove of the bill Gov. Gray Davis signed last week to allow illegal immigrants to obtain a driver’s license. The bill is opposed by 66 percent of non-Hispanic whites, 57 percent of blacks, 52 percent of Asians and 34 percent of Latinos, though the ethnic sample used here is very small and prone to a wide margin of error. Interestingly, 30 percent of those who say they support Bustamante oppose the driver’s license bill, while 88 percent of McClintock voters oppose it and 84 percent of Schwarzenegger backers do so.