Voting

Russian voters are stepping inside polling booths today to choose between Democratic reforms and a dark Communist past. You might expect such a historic event to captivate fellow Russians in Los Angeles. After all, when other countries hold critical elections, local emigres--whether Mexicans, Koreans or Salvadorans--anxiously await the results. Yet many Russians in West Hollywood and other enclaves are approaching the hotly contested election with cool indifference.

Richard Dauber does not live in the quaint New Hampshire where New Englanders chat around cracker barrels, nor is his neighborhood surrounded by the poverty associated with closed textile mills.

Several Westside legislators were hailed as environmental heroes this week after maintaining a perfect pro-environmental 1995 voting record in Congress, according to officials at the League of Conservation Voters. Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), Julian Dixon (D-Culver City) and Tony Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) all scored 100, voting for the environment each of 13 times monitored by the Washington-based league for its annual national environmental scorecard.

Promising to mobilize at least 100 grass-roots political activists in every congressional district across the country this year, AFL-CIO leaders unveiled details Wednesday of an unprecedented $35-million campaign to spur voters' support for issues dear to organized labor. AFL-CIO officials said the program will dwarf previous get-out-the-vote efforts that in past years cost in the range of $5 million to $7 million.

Michael Greene never expected to find himself arguing that Michael Jackson shouldn't be overlooked for Grammy Award consideration. But that's exactly what happened recently, when Greene, the president and CEO of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, convened the new committee charged with selecting the five nominees in each of the 1996 Grammys' top four categories: best album, record, song and new artist.

It wasn't unprecedented, by any means. In 1985, Steven Spieberg was omitted from the list of best director nominees when "The Color Purple" received 11 Oscar nominations. And four years later, Bruce Beresford was overlooked when "Driving Miss Daisy" took the top prize.

This politically gridlocked country held an election Thursday, and there were killings, acts of intimidation by the opposition, reports of government ballot-box stuffing and soldiers and police deployed by the hundreds of thousands to keep the peace. Only two things were missing as one of Asia's most impoverished countries selected a new Parliament: a real choice for the electorate, and voters themselves.

When it came right down to it, only the people living nearest the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station turned out in heavy numbers to vote against a proposed civilian airport at the base, according to a breakdown of the March 26 election.

A center-left coalition headed by former Communists seemed poised to take power here today, but its projected victory in Sunday's national elections may prove too narrow to ensure any quick end to Italy's prolonged political stalemate. The center-left alliance's projected lead over a center-right coalition would give it a plurality in the two houses of Parliament. But it will not be clear until all the votes are counted later today whether it has majority control in either house.

In 1994, credit (or blame) for the Republican takeover of Congress went to a voting bloc widely characterized as Angry White Men. The bloc to watch in 1996 might be termed Worried Women. But watch closely. They aren't behaving the way you might expect. A recent nationwide Los Angeles Times Poll found that among registered voters, more women than men--70% to 53%--think that the country is "seriously off on the wrong track."