California's "Paycheck Protection" initiative lost
Tuesday 53% to 47%. That means the state's union members will
continue to have money automatically taken out of individual
paychecks by their union's leadership, which then spends the
money for political candidates and causes supported by the people
running the union.
For political cynics, the unions' campaign against Prop. 226
was hilarious. They ran TV ads claiming that corporations outspend
unions by 11 to 1 in politics. Meanwhile they were spending $30
million of union dues money--about $12 a vote--to beat a measure
that would have required permission from union members before
their dues money is spent on such campaigns. This financial outlay
was way beyond anything the proposition's supporters spent. They
don't call it Big Labor for nothing.
Business interests in fact were AWOL during the Paycheck Protection
debate. Last year, unions collected signatures for three ballot
initiatives that would have curbed business tax preferences and
political activity. The unions agreed not to file their signatures
in exchange for business sitting out
the 226 campaign. The result was a 6-to-1 union spending advantage
that paid for everything from 10,000 TV ads to 59 field organizers
to even ads on Mexican radio stations.
The message of this anti-226 campaign was simple: Change the
subject. "We have to put it in as broad a context as possible,"
a Democratic pollster told the Nation magazine, "and get
away from a debate over how much control union members should
have over dues." And so we got claims that
Prop. 226 would allow gang members to target cops at their home
addresses. That it would threaten Medicare. And that it would
cost nonprofit groups "much of" the money they raise
in California. State affiliates of the American Cancer Society
and the Heart and Lung Associations helped spread this disinformation.
It's hard to justify giving money to such causes if their cause
is politics.
As to business (which mostly employs non-union workers anyway),
after watching them sit on the sidelines it will be harder to
sympathize with their whining about shortages of workers and
modern labor skills. It's worth keeping in mind that to the extent
there is any sort of union movement today, it is led by public-sector
unions, who not surprisingly are a
permanent lobby for the expansion of government regulations on
business.
The California Teachers Association alone spent $6.4 million
against Prop. 226--far more than the entire budget supporting
the initiative. Governor Pete Wilson says he was ignored when
he told business owners not to expect "any education reform
that will bring them more skilled workers"
unless the power of the teachers unions to snuff out good ideas
is curbed. The successful campaign to end bilingual education
(see above) proved an exception after classroom teachers themselves
split evenly in a union-conducted vote in Los Angeles.
"Paycheck Protection" is likely to survive. Term
limits suffered a devastating defeat in Washington state in 1991,
then won a rematch there and prevailed in 22 states. Backers
of Prop. 226 promise to be back in two years, and "Paycheck
Protection" initiative campaigns this fall in Oregon, Colorado
and Nevada will learn from the California experience.
We should be so lucky to have backers of the sort of campaign
finance reforms being debated in the House this month take a
lesson from California. Voters rejected three multi-millionaire
candidates in the primary. Since 1970, all 19 wealthy, self-financed
candidates who've run statewide
have failed. Many of those candidacies were the result of the
very kind of campaign funding limits Beltway savants want to
tighten.
But when middle-class candidates are restricted to unindexed
$1,000 contributions, loopholes such as soft money or vanity
candidates are inevitable. The answer is to raise limits on individual
contributions, require their full and immediate disclosure and
consider the one campaign reform
voters always support: term limits. In any event, California's
unions have just spent millions of their members' money to ensure
them the privilege of being able to do it again.
(Copyright 1998 - Wall Street Journal
Editorial)