With the latest in a series of racially charged initiatives poised to go before California voters perhaps sooner than anticipated, critics rolled out an all-star political cast of opponents Tuesday who assailed it as a measure that would promote ignorance by barring the state from collecting information necessary to protect public health and safety.

The initiative, which will appear on the next statewide ballot, is sponsored by University of California Regent Ward Connerly, the author of Proposition 209, the measure which banned affirmative action in California. It would prohibit state and local governments, including school districts, from collecting racial or ethnic data about citizens or applying that data in the delivery of state services.

Led by Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, all state constitutional officers except the governor announced their opposition.

Bustamante, noting that the California Medical Association's Board of Delegates voted 124-3 to oppose the initiative, said it would jeopardize public health by making it impossible to study diseases that disproportionately strike members of certain ethnic groups.

"Fair or unfair, diseases do not strike all segments of the population equally," Bustamante said. "This is about identifying those at risk and providing them with the information needed to save their lives."

The measure includes an exclusion that allow doctors and health care workers to ascertain the racial and ethnic background of their patients, but Dr. Paul Finney of the Medical Association said the exemption is so narrow that it would prevent public health experts from identifying disease patterns in different groups. "That lack of information would effectively tie our hands," he said.

Bustmante was one of four statewide officers to participate in a Capitol news conference that also included Attorney General Bill Lockyer, Treasurer Phil Angelides and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.

Connerly said the response from "establishment politicians," all Democrats, represented an attempt "to politicize what ought to be a nonpolitical issue ... They're playing politics with race, as usual."

Critics say it is Connerly who is playing racial politics by offering a proposal that if enacted would make it more difficult for government agencies to track and combat instances of discrimination and unequal treatment.

Originally, backers hoped to place the initiative on last fall's statewide ballot. But the number of signatures submitted to elections officials was so close to the required total that they had to be individually verified. That process delayed a vote on the initiative until the next statewide election.

Under ordinary circumstances, that would come in the March 2004 primary. However, should backers succeed in collecting enough signatures to force a vote on a proposed recall of Gov. Gray Davis, a special statewide election could be held this fall. If that happens, the Connerly initiative would be put to voters at that time.

Opponents said the initiative would prevent state agencies from collecting information that informs a number of public safety, education and economic development efforts.

"The very basis of a civilized society is predicated on knowledge," Angelides said. "This fosters ignorance, to the detriment of society and democracy."