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The battle over six budget-related measures on Tuesday's special election ballot has generated more than $31.5 million in campaign spending, split the state's labor community and created strange bedfellows on both sides. Supporters, aided by the powerful California Teachers Association and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's business allies, have raised more than $27.6 million to back Propositions 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E and 1F. Opponents, a collection of unions, anti-tax groups and supporters of children's and mental health programs, have raised $3.8 million. ... the California Federation of Teachers, a smaller rival to the California Teachers Association ... has chipped in more...

A. Jerrold "Jerry" Perenchio, former chair of the largest Spanish-language media company in the United States, has donated $1.5 million to back two May special election measures. Perenchio's donated the money to the Budget Reform Now committee, which calls for "yes" votes on Propositions 1A and 1C. Proposition 1A would impose state spending restrictions, establish a "rainy day" fund for budget shortages and extend tax increases for two years. Proposition 1C allows the state to borrow $5 billion against future profits of a revamped state lottery. It is the second time that Perenchio, former head of Univision Communications Inc., has...

Open borders + campaign finance hypocrisy + eco-radicalism = McCain’s billionaire national finance co-chair Jerry Perenchio By Michelle Malkin • January 28, 2008 09:50 AM Scroll down for updates…meanwhile: “Romney, McCain call each other ‘liberal’… 1peren003.jpg Meet Jerry Perenchio. He’s a National Finance Co-Chair of the McCain 2008 campaign and the billionaire founder of Spanish-language media conglomerate, Univision. He also heads up a charitable foundation that has showered gobs of money on extremist green lobbying groups. Take open-borders zeal, add campaign finance hypocrisy, mix with eco-radicalism, and presto: The perfect, multiculti-profiteering McCain money buddy. Here’s his official bio on the...

Meet Jerry Perenchio. He’s a National Finance Co-Chair of the McCain 2008 campaign and the billionaire founder of Spanish-language media conglomerate, Univision. He also heads up a charitable foundation that has showered gobs of money on extremist green lobbying groups. Take open-borders zeal, add campaign finance hypocrisy, mix with eco-radicalism, and presto: The perfect, multiculti-profiteering McCain money buddy.

While much attention in the past week has been paid to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's courting of the entertainment industry, Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani is planning to visit Los Angeles today for a fund-raiser. Giuliani, who has not yet publicly declared whether he will run for president, will raise money for his exploratory committee at the Pacific Palisades home of Bill Simon, who ran for governor of California in 2002 and is spearheading the former New York mayor's fund-raising efforts in the state. Giuliani is planning another fund-raising visit to the Los Angeles area in March. Although overall...

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had raised nearly $1.1 million by the end of June to fund his campaign to wrest control of the Los Angeles Unified School District, according to finance reports filed Friday. The largest contribution by far came from A. Jerrold Perenchio, chairman of Los Angeles-based Univision Communications, who gave $500,000. Altogether, Villaraigosa's campaign to promote restructuring of the nation's second-largest school district received $1,075,000 from 10 donors by the end of last month. Three donors gave $100,000 apiece: shopping center operator Westfield Group; Chicago-based AP Properties Ltd.; and David I. Fisher, chief investment officer of Capital Group Investment...

Though more local school bonds are passing, voter support for these measures is in decline. This seeming contradiction can be understood by looking at the impact of Proposition 39 passed by voters in 2000. That year, a small group of multimillionaires and billionaires, most from the Silicon Valley, spent more than $60 million on a campaign to lower the vote threshold for the passage of local school bonds that only property owners are obligated to repay. The two-thirds vote for local bonds was established in the California Constitution of 1879 in recognition of the fact that not everyone who voted...

California's prison guards have given Democratic gubernatorial challenger Phil Angelides a maximum $22,300 donation, but representatives for the powerful union say the contribution does not constitute an endorsement. "While we continue to evaluate the direction we are going to take in the fall, we do recognize that candidates have to be able to reach out to the voting public and voice their vision for California," said Lance Corcoran, spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA). The union has not donated to Gov. Schwarzenegger's campaign. The well-heeled union is believed to be sitting on a $10 million--or larger--war chest...

The powerful family of Carlos Slim - the world's third richest man, with a $30 billion fortune - bought a huge stake in Spanish-language television giant Univision .....It signals that the Slim family, which owns several Latin American companies, could be planning to participate in a buyout of Univision or is trying to block a takeover by another suitor. Slim purchased 8.5 million Univision shares between March 9 and March 20...... The family now controls about 2.8 percent of Univision's outstanding shares through its real estate company, Inmobiliaria Carso. Carlos Slim's son sits on the board of Mexican company Grupo...

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state GOP collected an estimated $2.5 million Monday at a fundraiser headlined by Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), as scores of union members protested outside the event calling for the governor's ouster in November. For Schwarzenegger, the closed-door dinner begins to replenish a political fund drained last year by his costly and losing campaign to enact ballot proposals to slow state spending and curb public union power in Sacramento. Top donors kicked in as much as $100,000 to attend the dinner and reception. But the event was reminiscent of...

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Last year, Sen. John McCain urged his friend, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, to push for campaign finance reforms in California in 2006. But the governor has spent much of his time talking about building highways, levees and schools, not restraining the flow of campaign dollars. On Monday, the Republican senator known for trying to slow runaway political spending in Congress was set to help the governor raise money for his re-election bid at a fundraiser with tickets priced up to $100,000. The closed-door event was being hosted by donors among the entertainment and business elite, including "The...

WASHINGTON - A pro-Republican get-out-the-vote group aimed at counteracting multimillion-dollar organizations that oppose President Bush has logged its first $1 million donation. The Progress for America Voter Fund received $1 million in June from Jerry Perenchio, chief executive of the Univision Communications Inc. Spanish-language media company. Perenchio, a volunteer GOP fund-raiser, has also raised at least $100,000 for Bush's re-election effort. Perenchio's donation was among three accounting for nearly all the $2.26 million the Progress for America Voter Fund raised in the second quarter, a report by the group to the Internal Revenue Service shows. The group also received $500,000...

Most of the predominantly Hispanic customers at the Central Bar on New Main Street in Yonkers say they enjoy watching Univision on television because it reminds them of home. "We like Univision because the clientele is 80 percent Mexican, and they broadcast Mexican programs," said Lucero Cifuentes, 29, a bartender who on Tuesday was enjoying a media buffet on two televisions, each tuned to different channels. Here, Univision's programming sparks conversations — not controversy. But in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, Univision is at the heart of a heated debate over whether the media giant should be allowed to acquire the...

Billionaire Jerry Perenchio lets his money do his talking in Los Angeles politics -- contributing more than $1 million to defeat San Fernando Valley secession and win passage of Los Angeles Unified's school bond issue. That makes Perenchio, the 71-year-old CEO and chairman of the board of Univision, the Spanish-language television network, the biggest financial force in city politics today. Yet he doesn't disclose -- even to his closest friends, let alone the public -- his motives for contributing so heavily. His New York publicist, who doesn't even have a resume or photo of him, said Perenchio never talks to...