Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/42291
TAKING A STAND Who's behind paycheck ploy? Just follow the money. The trail reveals the top donors who are bankrolling the latest "paycheck deception" initiative to be a wealthy lot of millionaires, bankers, a pro-voucher venture capital- ist, and real estate developers, all looking to invest in silencing the political voices of working California people. With some audacity, they call their politi- cal action committee "Californians Against Special Interests." The campaign has raised and spent at least $1.2 million as of late August, according to the secretary of state's campaign finance website. The website shows that Lewis Uhler is back. The campaign has paid $35,000 for consulting services to a committee run by the archconservative Republican architect of Prop. 75, the paycheck initiative soundly defeated by voters in 2005. Some top donors so far: $225,000 in-kind contribution from the Citi- zen Power Campaign, formed for the 2010 attempt at a paycheck deception initiative. $200,000 from Ed Bloomfield Jr., Manhattan Beach real estate developer. $160,000 from Larry Smith, a real estate investor. $100,000 from Frank Baxter, former CEO of the investment banking firm Jefferies & Com- pany. $100,000 from Tim Draper, the Menlo Park- based venture capitalist who funded Prop. 38, a school voucher initiative, defeated in 2000 with CTA leading the opposition. $100,000 from Bradley Wayne Hughes Jr., son of the billionaire founder of Public Storage. $76,442 from Lincoln Club of Orange County political action committee, which provided "significant seed money" for the two prior California "paycheck protection" initiatives, both of which failed. $50,000 from Richard Riordan, former mayor of Los Angeles. $50,000 from Protect Prop. 13 group, part of Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. $40,000 from the Lincoln Club of San Diego. 40 California Educator / September 2011 Misleading paycheck initiative seeks to silence the working class AT A TIME when it's critical that CTA members' voices be heard in Sacramento, wealthy developers and venture capitalists are bankrolling a devious new "paycheck deception" initiative that would silence the voices of all California union workers and strengthen the clout of big corporations. By early September, the campaign behind this new attack on middle-class workers was on the verge of collecting enough signatures to put the initiative on the ballot next year. The measure singles out public- and private- sector unions for unfair restraints on politi- cal spending while providing loopholes for big businesses, warns CTA President Dean E. Vogel. "California voters already rejected two of these 'paycheck deception' attacks in the past 13 years because they know a scam when they see one," says Vogel. "Wall Street already outspends unions by huge margins, and this initiative would make the imbalance worse in our state. We can't create a better future for our students and our state by silencing the voices of California's working class — espe- cially teachers, firefighters, police and nurses." Corporations nationwide have outspent unions on politics about 15-to-1 over the past 11 years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. It is ironic that the new ballot measure is called the "Stop Special Interest Money Now Act." The initiative is clearly not what it seems, says Vogel. "It singles out middle-class work- ers for unfair treatment and does nothing to stop corporate CEOs from contributing to political campaigns. It creates more prob- lems than it solves." The dangers of this kind of initiative are real, agrees Bay Area high school teacher Tim Sbranti. He chairs CTA State Council's Political Involvement Committee, which has been tracking this ballot measure. "It would be devastating for public edu- cation in California," says Sbranti, a past president of the Dublin Teachers Associa- tion in Alameda County. "It would devas- tate our ability to fight for our students and our schools." Working with coalitions, CTA helped defeat similar measures in 1998 and 2005, but it takes solidarity and community out- reach, says Sbranti. "We have to mobilize. We have to be ready to fight. When we fight together, we win." The initiative backers call it "paycheck protection" because it would ban corpo- rations and both public and private labor unions from using automatic payroll deduc- tions for political fund-raising. It would also ban corporate and union contributions to candidates. But this is specifically designed to unfairly impact labor unions, not corporations. Cor- porations can tap vast profits, rather than their employees, for political funding. This measure is unnecessary because union members already have the right under California law to request that their dues not be used for political purposes. CTA mem- bers can opt out of paying dues to the ABC Committee, CTA's political action commit- tee, which funds CTA's campaigns. CTA has a democratic process in place to decide whether to engage in political activi- ties. The final decisions on campaign spend- ing represent the will of the majority. This process involves the nearly 800 democratically elected teacher delegates to the CTA State Council voting to make final decisions on all political expendi- tures. Educators like Lysa Sassman, vice president of the Auburn Union Teachers Association, validate this system and what it's accomplished over the years. "I trust the spending process that we have in place at CTA because I have a say in it and I trust the leadership of CTA. The leaders can be trusted to make the decisions based on what's best for our students and our members," says Sassman. "The people behind this initiative have no right to inter- fere with my union. Members decide what CTA's political priorities are. We are the bosses of our union. Educators run CTA." The AFL-CIO warns that paycheck deception initiatives are partly in retaliation for unions' exposing the right-wing, anti-