California Conservative

The LA Times reports:

Escalating its efforts to kill Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ballot measures, organized labor has begun pressuring California corporations to withhold donations to his campaign.

The move to cramp Schwarzenegger’s fundraising for the Nov. 8 election comes as union leaders shift the focus of their aggressive television advertising. After six months of running spots that pound Schwarzenegger himself, labor has turned to ads that knock specific ballot measures pushed by the Republican governor.

The ad onslaught, aided by Schwarzenegger missteps, succeeded months ago in dragging down the governor’s popularity. Yet with the start of absentee voting just a week away, it remains unclear whether labor can transform his political decline into defeat of his entire election agenda.

In other developments,

1. Bear to the Right refers to the new union tactics as thuggery.
2. XRLQ reviews and breaks down a recent mailer he received on all the propositions, including Prop. 75.
3. Flap reports that Senator McCain might be willing to hit the road and support Proposition 75 if asked.
4. The Sacramento Bee analyzes a new TV ad opposing proposition 75. Bottomline, the sky is not falling and unions will not be silenced by the measure:

While it is true that Proposition 75 could result in less money in unions’ political coffers because a certain percentage of employees would not provide consent, unions still would have the ability to speak out against a policy proposal, such as the teachers did earlier this year.

Not all of the teachers’ mobilization to which the ad refers showed up as an expense of the California Teachers Association’s political committee. Part of it was included in the $8.2 million listed on its lobbying reports through June 30 as “other payments to influence legislative or administrative action.”

Proposition 75 would affect dues diverted to political committees. Unions could continue to use money from employees who refused to sign the consent form to advocate on issues before the Legislature or the governor. According to state law and interpretations by the Fair Political Practices Commission, those “other payments to influence” can be spent on virtually anything related to an issue before the Legislature or an administrative action, as long as it’s not specifically advocating a particular result at an election.

Unions’ political committees may have less money for ads tied to an election - such as the tens of millions of dollars the CTA has plowed into the current special election campaign - but most other states with similar laws have seen little effect on union spending.

Cross-posted at SoCal Law Blog

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 4th, 2005 at 7:25 am and is filed under Arnold, Author: Jeff Lewis, California, Elections, Law, Sacramento. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.