An initiative dubbed as a measure to empower homeowners who confront builders over poorly built homes is headed for defeat.

Nearly 78 percent of voters cast ballots against Prop. 201, the Homeowners' Bill of Rights, with more than 97 percent of the state's voter precincts reporting.

The proposition has been advanced by the AFL-CIO and local and national sheet metal workers unions that claim the measure is a necessary protection for homeowners that would give them more freedom to sue homebuilders for constructing and selling shoddy homes.

Opposition to the initiative, not surprisingly, has emerged from the homebuilding industry, which has portrayed the Homeowners' Bill of Rights as a Trojan horse meant to create a wave of construction-related lawsuits to enrich trial attorneys.