While most of us seem to have made up our minds long ago about the presidential race, we're now beginning to consider the many State initiatives facing us November 2.

I don't relish the laundry list in the polling booth, but there are several proposals which would significantly affect the poor and vulnerable. One would expand services to the at-risk mentally ill and the other would expand gambling in California.

Proposition 63 builds on an experiment initiated five years ago by Sacramento Assemblyman Darryl Steinberg, which integrated outreach and services to the mentally ill, including medical care, short and long-term housing, prescription drugs, vocational training and self-help and social rehabilitation. This approach has significantly reduced homelessness and crime in the select areas where it has been tried.

California has demonstrated that when it chooses to, it is capable of ameliorating the pain of mental illness. Prop 63 would provide the resources to confront this epidemic statewide and to address the illness that has festered ever since the State closed down its mental hospitals 35 years ago.

Hundreds of thousands of Californians suffer from severe mental illness. Mentally ill children fail in school and the affected adults often end up on the streets or in jail. Neither Catholic Charities, Catholic hospitals, nor other existing providers currently have the resources necessary to adequately address these needs.

Prop 63 would generate resources through a one percent increase on taxable incomes over $1 million, adding up to $750 million annually. This tax is a modest increase compared to the size of the tax breaks that the wealthy have received in recent years.

The two ballot measures raising greatest alarm for Catholic Charities are Propositions 68 and 70, which would vastly expand gambling in California.

Many of those who frequent casinos simply can't afford to be there. Gaming businesses promote the chance to make a quick buck --- disproportionately appealing to people living on the economic edge. Casinos prey on the poorest segments of our society. Those of us at Catholic Charities have seen this exploitation first hand.

Prop 68 is sponsored by non-tribal gambling interests and is designed to expand non-tribal gambling. Proponents of 68 argue that it would generate approximately a billion dollars a year in new revenue for California, because of the requirement that 25-30 percent of revenue go to the State.

Prop 70 is sponsored by tribal gambling interests and it proposes to expand the number of games allowed in existing casinos and to expand tribal gambling in urban areas. It would establish 99 year gambling compacts and limit the amount of revenue that the State could collect from these facilities. Prop 70 would likely create a financial drain on local governments.

Even Prop 68, which would at least dedicate significant new revenue to the state, is not worth the social problems it would create. While Prop 70 is being promoted as a way to help Indian tribes, in fact the tremendous expansion of Indian gaming so far has had only a nominal impact on most Native Americans in California. We believe that there are better ways to generate revenue or resources, than to permit exploitation of the poor.

In our support for 63 and opposition to 68 and 70, Catholic Charities joins many other California leaders, including the major associations of police chiefs and sheriffs. Our shared experience is that good mental health services advance the public order and that expanding gambling undermines it.

On these questions, as well as every other issue we face as Catholic citizens, our challenge is to consider the impact of our decisions on our brothers and sisters that are vulnerable. How do our choices affect the life, health and wholeness of those in greatest need? That is the challenge of faithful citizenship.

Rick Mockler is the Executive Director of Catholic Charities of California. He can be reached at rmockler@cacatholic.org.