Marjie Lundstrom: L.A. business group aligns with labor for statewide preschool

AP ^ | 9/8/5 | Marjie Lundstrom

[SmithL]

Talk about drama.

If Californians approve the bold new "Preschool for All Act" - a proposed ballot measure that would offer free preschool to all the state's 4-year-olds - the overhaul of the state's education system would be epic.

Sell It Yourself There's star power behind this initiative, aimed at the June ballot and engineered by Hollywood filmmaker and children's advocate Rob Reiner.

But there's also a prequel, an intriguing back-story you probably haven't heard about.

Remember Rusty Hammer?

Hammer is the former chief of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce who went on to become president and CEO of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce in 2001. Despite such lofty positions, he still likes to think of himself as the guy who became the nation's youngest elected official by winning a City Council seat in Campbell, near San Jose, at age 18. He became the city's mayor at 21.

Now he's up to something else.

While battling a debilitating and rare form of leukemia, the 52-year-old former Sacramentan helped pull off a political coup few would have thought possible.

Recently, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce became the first business organization to publicly endorse Reiner's preschool initiative. Also endorsing the measure is the powerful Service Employees International Union.

Business and labor - not the usual marriage in California, especially when we're talking tax increase.

"It's really historic; it's amazing," said the initiative's campaign manager, Ben Austin. "What else in California do the L.A. Chamber of Commerce and the SEIU agree on?"

Under the proposal, California would generate $2.3 billion a year by taxing its richest people - an additional 1.7 percent on individuals earning more than $400,000 a year and couples exceeding $800,000.

In other words, a lot of the people on the L.A. Chamber's board.

[SmithL]

More taxes in California.

[LauraleeBraswell]

As long as celebrities children are also forced to go to public preschools, I support it!

[calcowgirl]

"You'd be surprised to see the number of conservative Republicans, all of whom are making this kind of money, who stood up and said, 'I think this is the right thing to do, even though I'm going to have to be paying this money out of my pocket."

How exactly do these people interpret "conservative"?

[calcowgirl]

As for this tax increase, Hammer said Los Angeles business leaders concluded it was palatable because it would restore a tax rate that had existed under Govs. Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson.

Who are these socialist business leaders? Is this the California Round Table bunch?

[SierraWasp]

Archie shoulda put that "Meathead" in a coma when he had the chance!!!

I'm really sickened to hear that Rusty Hammer is such a leftist tax loving Socialista!!!

The business community in this state has lost it's fricken collective mind to a greater degree than I ever imagined possible!!!

This is actually starting to approach a dangerous situation in CA!!!

[SierraWasp]

A sickening number of them are "Country Club" Republican "Party Regulars!"

[calcowgirl]

>>This is actually starting to approach a dangerous situation in CA!!!

Yep! I was amazed to find how long the communist party has been infiltrating our state education system and government. I was reading some old FBI files a while back (available online). I found the brother of the #2 CPUSA guy living a couple blocks from my elementary school! They haven't let up, nor will they until they are fully exposed.

Catering to these folks and 'compromising' is just reinforcing the evil they project.

[Czar]

"How exactly do these people interpret 'conservative'"?

The wrong way.

This ballot measure will of course be an automatic no.