With a third of precincts reporting, California voters approved Proposition 71, 59 percent to 41 percent.

Pre-election polls showed that Democrats generally backed and Republicans opposed the measure that would authorize the sale of bonds to support state-approved medical research.

Supporters told The Field Poll they believed in the need for medical research while opponents said it was too expensive and objected to use of embryonic stem cells on moral or religious grounds.

Backers of the measure, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, raised more than $27 million for the campaign, dwarfing the $170,000 raised by the opposition. The death last month of Christopher Reeve, a stem cell research advocate, helped focus attention on the issue.

The advertised price tag of Proposition 71 could double to $6 billion during the next three decades when interest payments are added to the cost of the measure to establish a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to oversee allocation of the money.

Stem cells -- in particular, embryonic stem cells -- excite researchers because of their capacity to develop into any of the human body’s 200-plus cell types. Researchers hope that stem cells will some day produce cures for diseases like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s and spinal cord injuries.

But embryonic stem cell research is highly contentious. To create stem cell lines—batches of stem cells that can reproduce indefinitely—scientists must destroy human embryos. These embryos could preexist or, even more controversially, could be created by a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer, otherwise known as therapeutic cloning.

In the United States, the issue of embryonic stem cell research came to a head in 2001 when President Bush allowed federal spending for embryonic research on a supposed 78 pre-existing eligible stem cell lines (the current figure is approximately 22), but banned federal money from research that required creating new lines.

In California, therapeutic cloning has been legal since 2002. Proposition 71 would amend the state Constitution to make stem cell research a right, thus, supporters contend, guaranteeing it financial support even if the bonds don’t sell.

Allocation of this money would be governed by a 29-member Independent Citizen’s Oversight Committee, which would decide who would receive grants and loans for stem cell research and research facilities. Since Proposition 71 would give priority to research not funded by the federal government, most would likely go toward embryonic stem cell research.

Advocates of Proposition 71 claim that it will create jobs and “help save millions of lives and help reduce California’s skyrocketing health care costs” by finding cures to costly diseases, the Yes on 71 campaign said. Backers said the proposition will be paid for by royalties and patents created by the research.

But Rex Greene, an oncologist who has served on the California Medical Association Counsel on Ethical Affairs for nearly 20 years, disagrees. Greene, a spokesman for the opposition, said, “To say one idea will cure 80 percent of diseases is just disgusting. It plays on everyone’s compassion and desperation.”

In addition to raising moral and ethical questions about the research, Greene claims that actual stem cell-based cures are at least 20 to 30 years away.