Issue Referendum Reveals Mix of Liberal and Conservative Views in America Today

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- There are a great number of issues that arise in the normal discourse of American political life, and that number expands in a hotly contested election year such as this one. Many issues are complex and involved, but it is sometimes useful to distill them into simple for/against choices as if they were on the ballot on Election Day.

In a poll conducted this past weekend, October 25-28, Gallup asked Americans if they would vote for or against a variety of twenty different proposals. Many of the issues tested in this referendum format were the same as those asked in a similar referendum four years ago, while others were distilled from the topics and issues in the news of this campaign year. The twenty propositions, of course, include only a sampling of potential proposals which could be put before Congress, but they serve as a representative list of the types of concerns with which elected representatives, candidates for office and average Americans often find themselves grappling.

The results of this referendum process show once again the difficulty of attempting to assign broad labels to the American population. The people have decidedly mixed views overall, and the results show that over two-thirds of the American people say they would vote "for" both a number of what could be considered traditionally conservative issues, as well as what could also be considered liberal propositions.

For example, super-majorities of Americans favor mandatory testing of public school teachers and students, raising the minimum wage, stiffer penalties for hate crimes, across-the-board tax cuts, keeping abortion legal, licensing new handguns, prayer in the public schools and privatizing part of Social Security. A majority of Americans also favor a ban on "partial birth" abortions and support reducing the size of government. The public is divided on several other questions, ranging from an assault weapons ban to oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Traditionally Liberal Issues
Large majorities of the public support proposals with a traditionally liberal bent:

• Eighty-six percent of Americans support raising the minimum age by one dollar per hour. Although this idea is widely supported by almost everyone, women are more likely to be in favor of a minimum wage hike than are men -- 76% of men would vote "for," compared to 87% of women.
• Mandatory licensing and registration of new handgun purchases receives majority support from the public, as 72% of Americans say they would vote for such a proposal.
• More than two-thirds of the public (67%) say that, if they had the opportunity, they wouldnotvote to overturn the Supreme Court decision on abortion (Roe vs. Wade).
• Eighty-three percent of Americans say they would support a law that gave harsher penalties to perpetrators of hate crimes. Women are more united on this issue than are men -- 88% of women favor such legislation, compared with 78% of men.

Americans Also Support Issues Associated With a Conservative Perspective
Sixty-nine percent of Americans say they would vote for a constitutional amendment to allow prayer in public schools. Women are more likely than men to support such a measure -- 74% of women favor prayer in public schools, compared to 64% of men.

• Sixty-three percent of Americans favor a ban on partial birth abortion. This is not a particularly partisan issue -- 67% of Republicans support the idea, compared to 59% of Democrats.
• A majority of Americans are opposed to a proposal creating legal civil unions between homosexual couples -- 54% say that they would vote against such a law, while 42% say they would vote for this proposal. This controversial issue is highly partisan. Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to support the civil unions proposal (54% vs. 25%).
• A large majority of Americans is against allowing states to have racial and gender preferences in hiring and school admissions -- 85% did not favor the racial preferences proposal and 86% did not favor the gender preferences proposal.
• Most Americans (78%) would vote for an across-the-board tax cut.
• A smaller but still significant majority would vote to reduce the size and budget ofallgovernment agencies (62%). Support for both of these ideas, however, varies according to party identification. Eighty-nine percent of Republicans favor broad tax cuts, compared with 69% of Democrats. Seventy-two percent of Republicans support a reduction in the size of government agencies, compared to 54% of Democrats.

Public Divided on Oil Exploration and Immigration
Three of the proposals on Gallup's issue referendum received mixed support from the public.

• Forty-four percent of Americans say they are in favor of exploring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil, while 50% are opposed. This issue of Alaskan oil drilling reveals substantial gender and partisan gap. Fifty-two percent of men say they would vote for this proposal, compared with just 37% of women. Less than a third of Democrats (30%) say they are in favor of explorations, compared with 63% of Republicans. Those who have been following the news about this issue closely are more likely to support the idea than those who have not (51% vs. 36%) -- mostly because Republicans are more likely to be following the issue than are Democrats.
• Curtailing the level of legal immigration in this country is also met with mixed support. Forty-three percent of Americans say they would stop most legal immigration, while 51% say they would not vote for such a proposal.

Three Education Propositions Receive Majority Support
Seventy-five percent of Americans say they would support a law mandating national standardized tests in public schools every year. Republicans and Democrats are about equally likely to support this proposal.

• Almost all Americans -- 95% -- favor a law that would require new public school teachers to pass competency tests.
• Fifty-six percent of Americans support the idea of giving parents government funded school vouchers to pay for tuition at private schools.

The tables that follow indicate support for these issues by gender and party identification:

The Gender Gap: support for the twenty issues among men and women
			Men-
	Men	Women	Women
	"for"	"for"	"for"
Issue	%	%	%
Re-establishing relations with Cuba	67	46	21
Oil exploration in Alaska	52	37	15
Reducing government agencies	64	60	4
Racial preferences	15	11	4
Privatizing Social Security	68	65	3
Targeted tax cuts	54	51	3
Gender preferences	12	9	3
Mandatory teacher testing	95	95	0
Public school testing	75	75	0
School vouchers	56	56	0
Overturning Roe vs Wade	30	30	0
Across-the-board tax cuts	77	78	-1
Assault weapons ban	58	60	-2
Stopping legal immigration	42	45	-3
Banning "partial birth" abortion	61	65	-4
Legalization of civil unions	39	45	-6
Hate crime legislation	78	88	-10
Prayer in public schools	64	74	-10
Raising minimum wage	76	87	-11
Licensing of new handguns	71	83	-12

The Party Gap: support for the twenty issues among Republicans, Democrats and Independents
			Rep-
	Rep	Dem	Dem	ind.
	"for"	"for"	"for"	"for"
Issue	%	%	%	%
Privatizing Social Security	85	51	34	70
Oil exploration in Alaska	63	30	33	41
Overturning Roe vs Wade	45	20	25	28
School vouchers	68	46	22	57
Across-the-board tax cuts	89	69	20	80
Reducing government agencies	72	54	18	63
Prayer in public schools	76	66	10	64
Banning "partial birth" abortion	67	59	8	67
Public school testing	79	72	7	76
Mandatory teacher testing	94	95	-1	96
Stopping legal immigration	41	45	-4	42
Gender preferences	6	15	-9	7
Re-establishing relations with Cuba	50	61	-11	54
Assault weapons ban	51	64	-13	60
Racial preferences	6	19	-13	11
Hate crime legislation	75	90	-15	79
Licensing of new handguns	68	83	-15	78
Raising minimum wage	71	90	-19	82
Targeted tax cuts	37	65	-28	46
Legalization of civil unions	25	54	-29	46

Survey Methods

The results are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of 1,004 adults, 18 years and older, conducted October 25-28, 2000. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.