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Voters Narrowly OK Measure to Provide Stadium for Cardinals

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From Staff and Wire Reports

Voters in Arizona’s Maricopa County narrowly approved a measure Tuesday that would provide most of the money for a $331-million stadium for the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals.

With 98% of the precincts reporting, 51% were in favor of Proposition 302 and 49% against.

Joe Yuhas, executive director of Arizona Wins, the group backing the proposal, stopped just short of claiming victory, citing about 40,000 absentee ballots that have yet to be counted.

But, he said, “Do the math. Tomorrow I think we’ll have some good news for the people of Maricopa County.”

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Backers of the proposal spent at least $1.7 million to persuade voters to approve the proposition. The vote ends speculation that Cardinal owner Bill Bidwill might move the franchise to another city.

Cardinal officials have said a new stadium is crucial to providing revenue sources needed to be competitive, and officials in San Antonio and Los Angeles were watching the outcome in a potential attempt to lure the team away.

The stadium would seat 70,000, with 7,000 additional seats for the Fiesta Bowl and Super Bowl. It would feature a retractable roof and a natural grass field that would slide outdoors when not in use.

Elsewhere on election day, Tom Osborne once again romped in Nebraska.

The former Nebraska football coach posted a lopsided victory in his first bid for Congress, making the 62-year-old Republican one of several sports celebrities to win political elections.

Herb Kohl, owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, kept his U.S. Senate seat in Wisconsin, and former NFL star Steve Largent and one-time Oklahoma quarterback J.C. Watts, both Republicans, held their U.S. House seats in Oklahoma.

Former Olympian Jim Ryun, a Republican, retained his U.S. House seat in Kansas.

Osborne won 81% of the vote in Nebraska’s 3rd Congressional District.

“He always liked to win big. There’s no question about that,” said Nebraska football Coach Frank Solich, a longtime Osborne assistant.

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Kohl kept his seat with an easy victory. The Democrat defeated John Gillespie, who had the early endorsement of his longtime friend, former Green Bay Packer quarterback Bart Starr.

Starr’s old home, Lambeau Field, was involved in a referendum vote.

The sale of the stadium’s naming rights to ease taxpayer costs for renovations won approval of Brown County residents in a referendum vote.

In Texas, a proposed downtown sports arena in Houston was overwhelmingly approved by Harris County residents, who voted to build it using tax money a year after rejecting a similar referendum.

The referendum asked voters to apply existing hotel and rental car taxes to construct a $256-million home for the Rockets.

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