AMERICAN ELECTION: Blacks lose out as the GOP gets its way

Bob Dole rolled the dice on California and lost, making little headway in his last gamble to steal the Sunshine State from President Bill Clinton.

But there was one consolation for the Republican Party yesterday, as the $3m (pounds 2m) campaign against the California Civil Rights Initiative paid off with the passing of Proposition 209, which bans preferences based on race and sex in the state government, from schools to contracts on road-works.

It passed by 54 per cent to 46 per cent, as voters apparently agreed that women and ethnic minorities no longer deserved to be given special consideration in employment and in the classroom.

State residents were left to choose between 15 ballot measures on election day, an unusually high number

Lawyers took the biggest tumble. After a television advertising war that cost more than $45m, according to the Los Angeles Times by far the highest figure ever spent on a single initiative, Proposition 211 went down to defeat. It would have expanded the legal opportunities for "strike suits", law suits citing stock fraud which have often followed rapid changes in share prices and which are one of the biggest betes noires of American industry.

From the Coca Cola Corporation to the New York stock exchange to Silicon Valley, businesses raised $36m to defeat the measure, saying it was the work of lawyers looking for a windfall.

Voters also overwhelmingly approved Proposition 213, to limit lawsuits brought after car accidents by drivers who were drunk or uninsured. While opponents claimed it was a boon for the California insurance industry, it clearly struck home with California drivers, with early returns showing a margin of three to one in favour.

If the saying holds true that as California goes, so goes the nation, US drug laws could face a quiet revolution from Proposition 215, which legalised the growth and use of marijuana - but not its sale - for medical purposes. It won support across most economic and ethnic boundaries in the teeth of opposition from law enforcement and major political figures.

But it was Proposition 209, the affirmative action ban, which generated the most heat and light. Supporters like California's Republican Governor, Pete Wilson, a driving force behind the measure who hoped to use it to boost Mr Dole's election chances, argued that reverse discrimination was divi- sive and redundant.

But opponents said it would hurt minority businesses which needed extra assistance and even bring an end to women's sports programmes established in the name of sex equality.

But Democrats were set to retake the California Assembly and will try to defuse the measure's impact.