CA: Big money, bigger voice - Arnold and his opponents getting ready to spend their way to victory

LA Daily News ^ | 3/28/05 | David M. Drucker

[NormsRevenge]

SACRAMENTO - In what was supposed to be an off-year for statewide elections in California, the airwaves are teeming with warring political ads as groups on both sides of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's agenda spend millions to sway voters in the upcoming special election.

``Without big money, you don't get an issue on the ballot,'' said Robert Stern of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies.

And with more than a year to go until the 2006 primaries, individual candidates for office also are busy raising funds:

-- The Republican governor is raising millions for a re-election bid he has yet to actually announce.

-- Democratic Treasurer Phil Angelides announced this month he is running for governor - no surprise since he has been amassing a campaign war chest for more than a year and had $14 million in the bank 18 months before the June 6 primary election.

-- Democratic Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who has informally announced his gubernatorial candidacy, is also cash heavy, with nearly $11 million on hand.

California political contests have been setting and breaking spending records for years - with no end in sight. Politicians say it takes plenty of cash to reach voters in the nation's most populous state.

``The governor has a responsibility to communicate to the people, and you need resources to do that,'' Schwarzenegger press secretary Margita Thompson said, explaining the governor's fund raising.

Watchdogs are concerned about the escalation of fund raising and spending aimed at influencing the public, but analysts say voters are rarely fooled and often see through the ad blitzes.

``Voters are very good at making discerning and rational judgments on initiatives,'' Stern said. ``And voters don't believe a whole lot of what a politician says, anyway.''

Schwarzenegger is raising money on several fronts. To fund a campaign to collect the signatures necessary to place his constitutional amendments on the ballot, he has helped an independent political committee - called Citizens to Save California - raise nearly $5 million toward its $13 million goal since March 1.

Clearing the way for Schwarzenegger to raise unlimited funds to promote his agenda to voters, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge ruled Friday that the state's Fair Political Practices Commission improperly limited donations to ballot measure political committees controlled by candidates and elected officials.

``I think it's important that people distinguish why the governor is raising money,'' said Marty Wilson, who directs Schwarzenegger's fund-raising activities. ``He's raised money since he's taken office to further a reform agenda that he believes benefits all Californians against opponents like the liberal, public employee unions and others pushing their own political agenda.''

To fund Schwarzenegger's expected 2006 re-election bid and other political activities, four committees he controls are also raising cash. They reported raising nearly $6.6 million between July 1 and Dec. 31 of last year, according to figures filed with the Secretary of State.

The four committees had a combined total of $2.4 million in cash on hand as of Dec. 31, and since Jan. 1 they have raised almost $2 million.

So far this year, Angelides has raised about $736,000 and Lockyer roughly $133,000.

Campaign officials for Angelides declined to comment for this story. Phone calls placed with Lockyer campaign officials were not returned.

Meanwhile, a host of political committees are also accumulating money for the special election expected to occur this year.

Currently, there are television and radio ads airing statewide - both promoting and denigrating Schwarzenegger's special election agenda - even though he has yet to formally call a date for the contest and despite the fact that the initiatives he's backing have not yet qualified for the ballot.

The California Teachers Association, a labor union of 335,000 teachers and other public school personnel that collects roughly $150 million annually in dues, recently spent about $3 million on ads against Schwarzenegger.

The teachers union ads decry the governor's proposal to pay teachers according to student performance rather than seniority as well as his effort to lengthen the amount of years it takes for teachers to achieve tenure. The CTA ads also criticize the governor's budget, saying it provides insufficient spending for K-12 education.

Responding to those ads, the governor filmed a television commercial - funded by the state Republican Party - that pushes his special-election education agenda and dismisses the teachers union criticism as inaccurate.

The state GOP declined to reveal what it is spending to run the ads, but said it constitutes a ``major, seven-figure'' buy.

The California Hospital Association also came to Schwarzenegger's aid recently, defending him against attacks from the California Nurses Association union.

The CHA is spending an undisclosed amount on television ads, running in the state's major media markets, that support his policy regarding how many nurses should be required to be on duty per patient in the medical-surgical wards of hospitals.

CTA President Barbara E. Kerr defends the money unions spend on politics, saying there is a difference between big-money corporations that spend thousands of dollars for a seat at a fund-raising dinner and union employees who live in the community and work collectively for the public good.

``I know the people of California trust and believe teachers, and that's who we are,'' Kerr said. ``Their neighbors are teachers, firefighters and nurses - they're not people who spend tens of thousands of dollars on a dinner.''

Schwarzenegger is also being attacked over the airwaves by California's largest union of state employees - Service Employees International Union Local 1000 - which is part of a coalition of ten labor unions that intend to defeat the governor's special election agenda and pass ballot measures of their own.

Since March 8, SEIU Local 1000 has spent just under $1 million on a radio ad campaign that is still under way.

The coalition of 10 labor unions - called the Alliance for a Better California - has declined to say how much money its member unions are prepared to spend. But leaders say they will spend whatever it takes to achieve their goals.

To date, the committee has accepted $1.8 million in contributions, including $500,000 from the Washington, D.C.-based American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees International union and $450,000 from the California State Council Of Service Employees.

Schwarzenegger intends to call a special election, probably in November, so voters can decide on four issues:

-- Adding a spending restraint to the state budget and giving the governor increased mid-year budget-cutting authority,

-- Replacing the guaranteed benefit pension system with 401(k) retirement accounts for all public employees hired as of July 2007,

-- Paying teachers on merit rather than tenure, and

-- Taking away the Legislature's power to draw legislative and congressional districts, and giving that authority instead to a panel of retired judges.

The special election, however, could decide a lot more than that, and groups that have a stake in the action have started stockpiling campaign cash.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a collection of drug companies also known as PhRMA, has put $7.9 million into a ballot committee in preparation for collecting signatures for an initiative that is similar to the low-cost prescription drug plan the companies negotiated with the Schwarzenegger administration last year.

The firms prefer a legislative solution but will collect signatures for their measure as a backstop against an opposition measure supported by the 10 unions' Alliance for a Better California.

The unions' initiative - written by Anthony Wright, executive director of Oakland-based Health Access, which lobbies Sacramento on behalf of the poor and those without medical insurance - is designed to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

Pharmaceutical companies say it would hamstring their ability to earn the profits needed to adequately invest in the research and development of new, life-saving medicine.

``Initiative campaigns in California take a fair amount of resources, and the pharmaceutical industry takes the initiative threat posed to it, and the biotechnology industry, very seriously,'' said Dave Puglia, a Sacramento-based political consultant for PhRMA.