Election Notes Arizona

What price bigotry? Arizona voters discovered that their rejection of two / proposals to create a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday could cost the state $350 million in lost revenue from the 1993 football Super Bowl and the N.B.A. All- Star game, and millions more from other canceled sporting events and conventions. Shortly after the results were known, N.F.L. commissioner Paul Tagliabue recommended moving the game elsewhere. About 60% of the league's players are black.

The promoters of the holiday apparently were caught by surprise. They had hoped to remove Arizona from the list of three states (the others are New Hampshire and Montana) that do not observe the civil rights leader's birthday as a holiday. A major reason for the rejection: voter confusion. One proposal called for trading Columbus Day for the King holiday; it lost 3 to 1. The other would have simply added King's birthday to the list of state holidays; it failed by only 17,000 out of 1 million votes cast.

State Senator Carolyn Walker, an outspoken black legislator, says, "It's sad to say this state is racist, and I keep saying we are not. But when you turn down a holiday that deals with honoring civil and human rights, the numbers show we are."