This post is a plug for a series of programs that the public radio station KQED-FM show “Forum with Michael Krasny” has been broadcasting on several of the ballot measures. The links below lead to pages with RealMedia live streams and podcast downloads of each program.

The broadcasts so far include:

• Proposition 83

• Proposition 85

• Proposition 87

• Proposition 89

• Proposition 90

The “Forum” website’s audio archive also has a number of other informative podcasts on the election, including candidate forums (including lieutenant governor, secretary of state, insurance commissioner, and attorney general) and a discussion of the state’s bond indebtedness.

According to the Polimetrix poll that was cited in an earlier post, Propositions 85 and 88 are faltering, with 51-42% opposing the parental notification measure and 60-31% opposing the education parcel tax. Proposition 89, the campaign finance reform measure supported primarily by the California Nurses’ Association, is also in trouble, with 52-35% opposing it.

Propositions 86 and 87 are apparently doing surprisingly well, given the amount of money that has been spent by opponents of each measure. Proposition 86 has 49-47% support and Proposition 87 has 49-44% support.

An article in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times examines the role of so-called 527 committees (named after the section of the Internal Revenue Code that governs their tax-exempt status) in this year’s election. 527 committees are known as “issue advocacy groups” because their ostensible purpose is to advocate on behalf of or in opposition to political issues rather than to advocate the election or defeat of a specific candidate, a distinction which allows 527s to avoid filing campaign disclosure reports with the Federal Election Commission. Probably the two best-known 527 committees are Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth, which spent $22.5 million in 2004 on TV ads and other material opposing John Kerry’s presidential bid; and MoveOn.org, which spent $21.5 million in 2004 on TV ads and other material opposing George W. Bush’s re-election campaign.

According to the Times‘ analysis of federal campaign finance reports, 527 committees have spent upwards of $300 million to influence the outcomes of various races and measures in this election. The main example closest to home is the significant amount of money that’s being spent by 527 committees on behalf of Proposition 90, although unregulated money is also being spent by 527s on behalf (or, more frequently perhaps, in opposition to) of many other ballot measures and statewide and congressional candidates.

Robert Salladay of the Los Angeles Times writes on his blog today about a new poll by Polimetrix, a polling outfit headed by Stanford political science professor Douglas Rivers, which shows some unsurprising results — Schwarzenegger ahead of Angelides by 10 points, for instance — and some surprising ones, including what appears to be an unstoppable juggernaut in the form of Proposition 90, which the Polimetrix survey has at 58-28% support — a 30-point margin.

The governor came out today opposing Proposition 90, although it seems unclear what effect, if any, the late showing of his hand in this particular card game will have on the end result.

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article today about Stephen Bing, the primary backer of Proposition 87. Bing has now given $49.5 million in support of the alternative energy initiative, the largest amount ever donated by a single individual to a campaign in US history.

Total spending on the Yes and No on 87 campaigns has now reached an astronomical $142 million, according to the Los Angeles Times. Most of the No on 87 cash has come from oil companies like Chevron, Aera Energy (a coalition of ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell), and Occidental Oil.

According to the Initiative and Referendum Institute at USC, there are a total of 208 propositions on the ballot in 37 states nationwide this year, which is an increase from the 162 propositions on the ballot nationwide in 2004. California has the third-highest number of propositions on the ballot, with Colorado (14 propositions) and Arizona (19 propositions) coming in second and first. The most pervasive issues on the ballot this year are eminent domain (13 states), tobacco and smoking-related measures (10 states), and same-sex marriage (9 states).

Outside of California, several measures are being watched closely. These include:

• Referred Law 6 in South Dakota, which would repeal the state’s ban on abortion that was signed into law by Governor Mike Rounds in March.

• Four measures on the Arizona ballot are related to illegal immigration. The measures would deny state services to illegal aliens (Ballot Measure 300), deny them bail in felony circumstances (Ballot Measure 100), deny them punitive damages in civil lawsuits (Ballot Measure 102), and establish English as the state’s official language (Ballot Measure 103).

• Proposal 2 on the Michigan ballot would prohibit the University of Michigan and other state universities from “using affirmative action programs that give preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment, education or contracting purposes.”

Update: There’s a good article in the October 30 San Francisco Chronicle about Michigan’s Proposal 2, pointing out its similarities (including sponsorship) to California’s Proposition 209, which was passed almost exactly 10 years ago.

Bill Bradley, looking at a poll just released by the Public Policy Institute of California, observes on his blog this morning that the infrastructure measures are in trouble. The governor and many major state lawmakers and advocacy groups have gone up and down the state promoting and stumping for the measures. But none of the measures has increased its support in any significant way.

Support for Proposition 1B is stuck at 51-38%. Proposition 1C is at 56-34%, Proposition 1D is at 51-39%, and Proposition 1E is at 53-36%. Proposition 84, the water safety initiative, is well below the margin needed for passage, with 42% supporting it and 43% opposing it. As Bradley points out, even worse news for the measure’s supporters is that support for the measures among Democrats and independent voters, who are traditional supporters of bond expenditures, is far short of what it should be.

The PPIC polling data seem to suggest that voters are supportive of the concept of bond expenditures in general, but wary of the specific measures that appear on this year’s ballot. 58% of likely voters say that the $43 billion total that the bond measures, if implemented, would require is too costly. Focusing specifically on Proposition 1D, 87% of likely voters consider state spending on improvements in school facilities to be important for their individual communities, but support for that measure is essentially unchanged from last month.

A George Skelton piece in today’s Los Angeles Times notes that despite Schwarzenegger’s popularity, and despite several carefully orchestrated appearances at charter schools and Delta levees, he hasn’t been able to drum up much support for the infrastructure measures. Skelton surmises that if the bonds flop at the polls, it could take some of the luster off the projected Schwarzenegger re-election landslide.

According to an article in today’s Ventura County Star, Team 2006, the independent expenditure committee supporting Tony Strickland’s run for state controller, is also spending $100,000 for TV ad buys for the campaign of his wife, Audra Strickland, who is running for re-election in the 37th Assembly district against Ferial Masry.

According to the article, “The $100,000 spent on behalf of Audra Strickland in the Assembly race nearly matches the entire campaign fund of Strickland’s Democratic opponent.”

Audra Strickland told the newspaper, “I’m just pleased that people are out there helping me.”

The blogosphere is buzzing these final two weeks of the election season not about Schwarzenegger versus Angelides, but about Strickland versus Chiang (in the race for state controller) and McClintock versus Garamendi (in the race for lieutenant governor). A new independent expenditure committee, Team 2006, has been formed by five Native American tribes that operate casinos in Southern California. Four of the tribes have contributed nearly $9 million to Team 2006.
Continue Reading »

The Center for Responsive Politics notes that the 2006 election is on track to be the most expensive in US history. “Candidates, national political parties and outside issue advocacy groups will spend roughly $2.6 billion by the end of 2006 to influence the 472 federal contests around the United States and pad the war chests of incumbents not running this year,” according to the group.

Take a look at the CRP’s list of the top 20 industries contributing dollars to the 2006 election fights.

Both the KQED Capitol Notes blog and Daniel Weintraub on his blog at the Sacramento Bee make a hugely important point. While Governor Schwarzenegger is assiduously stumping for the four 1B-1E bond measures, including at a stop at the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland today, he has said virtually nothing about the state budget during the course of the race.

In fact, KQED’s John Myers notes, the governor has avoided answering questions about the budget. During the October 7 debate, the governor said, when asked a question about the budget, “This is not my style to talk about hypotheticals. Myers notes that Phil Angelides has offered some specifics about what he would do to balance the budget, including eliminating state government inefficiencies, but according to Myers, it’s unclear whether his numbers add up.

Myers, Weintraub, and other writers note that no matter what else happens, the state will almost certainly face at the minimum, a $4 billion budget shortfall in the 2007-2008 fiscal year. What Schwarzenegger and Angelides would do to address that shortfall is a question that is going almost completely undiscussed in the race. That’s an untouched question that will ultimately affect all Californians.

Some information resources:

• Yesterday’s edition of KQED’s “The California Report” has a John Myers news report about the budget from the gubernatorial race. The report (which lasts 8 minutes) can be downloaded in mp3 format here (scroll down to October 23).

• The state Legislative Analyst’s Office has a report on the 2006-07 budget that briefly discusses the impact of the budget shortfall projected out to the fiscal years 2007-08 and 2008-09.

Many of the major California political blogs seem to have already written Phil Angelides’ political obituary.

Some are still writing about his flubs in campaign appearances, or are observing that Arnold Schwarzenegger is making fewer and fewer campaign appearances these days, the governor’s campaign apparently believing that he’s been all but re-elected.

Just a few of the recent blog observations out there about Angelides: Karen Hanretty writes on her blog that Angelides is at serious risk of losing as badly to Schwarzenegger as Dan Lungren lost to Gray Davis in 1998 (Lungren lost by a 19-point margin) … Bill Bradley links to an article from the Hayward Daily Review that paints a portrait of Democratic Party activists having a hard time finding volunteers in Alameda County to work for Democratic candidates. Bradley also notes that the massive infusion of public employee union cash that was supposed to arrive to revitalize Angelides’ campaign in the final weeks has not materialized … The San José Mercury News politics blog observes that Angelides has picked up the endorsements of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, La Opinión, the state’s leading Spanish-language newspaper, and — that’s all.

Robert Salladay of the Los Angeles Times and Shane Goldmacher at The California Observer blog today both cite a new poll by J. Moore Methods gauging support for Propositions 1A-1E.

The poll shows all five measures are holding on to slim majority support or close to it. Proposition 1A has the highest support at 56-21%. Proposition 1E follows close behind at 55-31%. The other three bonds don’t fare quite as well. Proposition 1C is at 54-32%, 1D is at 52-34%, and 1B looks least likely to pass, with 50-36% support.

As Bill Bradley notes on his blog, the fact that the measures are stabilized at or slightly above 50% support is no guarantee of success. He cites what happened to the Rob Reiner-sponsored Proposition 82, which would have funded preschool for every child in California, and to Proposition 81, the 2006 library bond measure. Both looked like sure bets to pass according to most polls taken before the election; both failed to pass. (Proposition 82 in particular lost by a startlingly wide margin, 61-39%).

As Bradley observes:

While the measures are there to be won, they are also in dangerous territory. Finance-related initiatives that are hovering at or around 50% two weeks before a California election usually lose.

California currently taxes cigarettes at 87 cents per pack, which places the state tax at 22nd-highest among the states. The money from the tax currently goes to (1) the general fund, (2) to obligations incurred by Proposition 99 (the Tobacco Tax and Health Promotion Act of 1988), (3) to childhood development programs authorized by Proposition 10 (the California Children and Families First Initiative of 1998), and (4) to a breast cancer research fund established by the Legislature in 1994. The state raises approximately $1.094 billion in revenue from the tobacco tax each year, according to the California Budget Project.

Proposition 86, if it passed, would make California the state with the highest tobacco tax in the nation, at $3.47 per pack. A recent Orange County Register article points out that smokers could drive to Arizona or Nevada to buy cigarettes (where cigarette taxes are $1.18 and 98 cents per pack respectively) if Proposition 86 becomes law. They could also turn to the black market, as happened in New York when the state raised its cigarette tax to $3 per pack.

The California Budget Project confirms that the tax envisioned by Proposition 86 could be regressive, in that it would have the most significant impact on low-income consumers. Low-income consumers would spend 0.9% of their income on the tax if it passed. Taxpayers in the top 1% would spend 0.01% of their income on the tax.

Proponents counter that low-income consumers would benefit from the health programs that the tax would help fund, and they also contend that low-income consumers would be more likely to stop smoking as a result of the higher cost of buying cigarettes.

The California Budget Project has issued a comprehensive report on the potential economic and other impacts of the ballot measure.

Several recent articles give the in-depth treatment to Proposition 1D, the educational infrastructure ballot measure.

The San Francisco Chronicle notes that whether Proposition 1D passes or not, “California will have to build more than 12 new classrooms each day for five years — about 22,500 in all — to accommodate rising enrollment, mainly in the Central Valley and San Bernardino and Riverside counties, says the state Office of Public School Construction.”

The San Diego Union Tribune says that under Proposition 1D, “The University of California would get $890 million, including $200 million to expand telemedicine facilities to assist and train physicians — especially in specialized medical care — in underserved areas. California State University would receive $690 million.” (According to a recent Berkeleyan article, the $890 million would include “$28.6 million for improvements to [UC Berkeley] campus facilities, including infrastructure improvements to Birge Hall, renovations to Durant Hall, and initial efforts to address seismic and program deficiencies in Campbell Hall.”)

A recent Sacramento Bee article adds that the state Office of Public School Construction says that nearly 300 school renovation projects are on hold throughout the state because of lack of funds. Proposition 1D would give $7.3 billion to K-12 schools.

According to an October 4 Contra Costa Times article, the two bond measures that seem to be polling least successfully among likely voters, Propositions 1B and 1D, would also be the most expensive if implemented. As Ethan Rarick, director of the Center on Politics at the Institute of Governmental Studies, observed, “$10 billion and $19 billion [the costs of each measure respectively] are just big numbers that scare voters.”

An editorial in today’s Sacramento Bee notes that most of the money behind the Yes on 90 campaign is courtesy of Howard Rich, a New York City real estate developer who, through a number of independent expenditure committees, has given $3.4 million of the $3.7 million in contributions that Yes on 90 has garnered this year.

An excellent piece in the July 13 edition of Capitol Weekly goes into more depth about Rich’s background. Rich is a nationwide crusader against eminent domain and has poured money into 7 of 12 of the eminent domain measures on state ballots this year. As the Capitol Weekly piece notes, Rich has financed campaigns in past California elections, including giving $1 million to the campaign against Proposition 45 (a John Burton-sponsored term-limits extension masure) in 2002.

Rich is quoted in the Capitol Weekly article as saying, “We have the ability to, in effect, bypass legislatures by going directly to the people through the initiative process.”

Other resources:

• The Center for Public Integrity recently issued a report on who else is financing the Yes on 90 campaign.

• The Public Broadcasting Service program “NOW” recently broadcast an episode on the extent to which Rich is helping to finance spending-cuts measures nationwide. There’s a link to the video and transcript here.

• On October 13, the Oregonian published a lengthy investigation into Rich’s political activity. The investigation found that Rich had given nearly $7 million this year alone to campaigns in favor of limited-government ballot measures nationwide.

• The San Francisco Chronicle has a diagram of the network of PACs that Rich has helped fund (along with an accompanying article).

If Proposition 90 passes, according to an article in the October 18 issue of the Los Angeles Times, almost every expense that is contemplated by Propositions 1A through 1E could be put on hold almost indefinitely.

That’s because the provisions of Proposition 90 could entitle property owners who believe that their property values are being harmed to go to court anytime a city or local agency released planning documents, which could essentially paralyze public works projects throughout the state. One expert quoted in the article noted that property owners in Oregon have filed nearly 40,000 lawsuits against local governments since Measure 37 passed in 2004 (Measure 37 has provisions that are substantially similar to some provisions of Proposition 90. One main difference is that Measure 37 deals mainly with land-use regulations, whereas Proposition 90 deals more directly with putting restrictions on governments’ authority to exercise eminent domain. Oregon also has a more directly eminent-domain-related measure, Measure 39, on this year’s ballot, and it’s sponsored by the same group that sponsored Measure 37, Oregonians in Action.)

Supporters of Proposition 90 counter that experts and government agencies that express alarm about the restrictions that Proposition 90 could impose are engaging in scare tactics because they don’t want to cede their right to exercise eminent domain.

Forget about California — the Washington Post reports in Friday’s edition that the fight over Proposition 87 may turn out to be the costliest in United States history. The article quotes John Matsusaka, the director of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California, as saying that the $107 million-plus that’s been spent on the yes and no campaigns thus far is only a little less than half the money ($250 million) spent by both major presidential candidates in the 2004 election.

Meanwhile, the San José Mercury News reports that, according to Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, corporations have shoveled over $255 million into this year’s ballot (mostly to defeat Propositions 86 and 87) — a figure that represents 61% of all expenditures in the election.

An article summarizing the pros and cons of Proposition 1A appears in yesterday’s Sacramento Bee. The main takeaway from the article seems to be that neither Proposition 1A nor its companion measure, Proposition 1B, would do enough to fix the state’s deteriorating roads and transportation infrastructure:

While Propositions 1A or 1B would bolster transportation funding, neither would supply enough to fix the state’s aging highway system, reduce congestion or provide alternative transit, according to many state and local transportation officials … Brian Williams, executive director of the Sacramento Transportation Authority, said planners here and around the state still need to look for new revenues, such as new parcel taxes or toll roads.

According to an article in today’s Sacramento Bee, most likely voters don’t know that the four major infrastructure bond measures (Propositions 1B-1E) are on the ballot, and when they find out about them and how much they are projected to cost, they are less likely to support passing them. This pattern is confirmed by polling data from the Public Policy Institute of California.

The article notes, “If voters approve the separate measures on transportation, education, flood protection and housing, it’s going to cost an average of $2.45 billion a year for the next three decades — a little more than the state now pays annually for in-home support services for the poor, all of its public health programs and the entire budget of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency.” The article goes on to note that the state already has $45 billion in outstanding bond debt, with yet another $45 billion waiting to be sold and financed, including $10 billion in bonds approved by voters in the 2004 election.

The state’s debt service ratio (the amount of the general fund that the state uses to retire bond debt) will increase from 4.2% to 4.8% by 2008-2009 if the bond measures on this year’s ballot pass.