Just got my CA voter information guide (you have to download the pdf)for November 8th’s special election.  I don’t know about your state but we get these humongo books printed in the smallest print with an analysis by the state’s legislative analyst, followed by argument in favor, rebuttal to the arguments in favor, argument against the initiative, followed by a rebuttal to the argument against the initiative.  Always enough to make my eyes cross but this year, yay, I’m a bit more versed.

Very quickly, Prop. 76 is CA’s state spending cap with lots of extras. With regards to public education, not only is it capping spending, we’re talking a huge amount of money per pupil which will be lost permanently, $600, in a state where school funding is lower than many states.  

Prop. 76 will overturn the minimum school funding protection voted in by Prop. 98 in 1988. Even more chilling is how Prop. 76 will give even more power to the Governor to cut the budget (remember he has line-item veto powers already) without oversight.

And so yesterday, I turned to the “rebuttal argument against Prop 76” (p. 31 to all of you who has a voter information guide) and see our Secretary of Education, Alan Bersin, listed as a writer for the rebuttal against 76, along with the president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, and a UCLA econ guy (with ties to Brookings and received grant money from the Bradley Foundation).  Take home point: Bersin supports Prop. 76, the one which will really hurt our public education system.

Bersin is a Democrat but he came to Sacramento trailing huge clouds of controversy after he beat up the school system in San Diego as superintendent.  I’ve previously written DLC seems to love him, which says a lot about why a Democrat would be out there supporting the forces behind the Governor. And his appearance with the Governor recently in SD is even more telling where his allegiance lies. It’s obviously not with the kids in public education.

From a SD paper:

Alan Bersin, the former superintendent of San Diego city schools, who now is serving as the state’s education secretary, appeared at Friday’s event and spoke in support of the ballot initiatives.

“It is our last clear chance and we have a hero – a real action hero – to lead us,” Bersin said.

Breaking!!!! Well, not really.

The governor released his positions on all the special elections initiatives today. It’s clear he has the wrong priorities for the state.  He represents a small number of wealthy contributors.  We represent 2.5 million working Californians.  His positions on every issue is opposite of ours.  The governor chooses to attack nurses, firefighters, cops and teachers and we speak out on their behalf.   He supports big drug and energy companies instead of the everyday people of the state he pretends to lead.   Arnold has made it his goal to consolidate power for himself and his companies; we are trying to stop this ploy couched as “reform”.

Schwarzenegger said he was a politician -that he would be a different kind of governor- but the only difference is more broken promises.  Line up his supporters  and then look at ours.  He has big drug companies, right-wing anti-tax advocates like Grover “drown it in a bathtub” Norquist and Lew “I think [sic] that Joe McCarthy was on target.” Uhler, and his own staff who thought it’s a great campaign idea to collect nasty stories about teachers, and to build a “phenomena of anger” against the dedicated people who keep us safe and healthy.  We have 2.5 million firefighters, nurses, teachers , police officers, health care workers and average everyday people who have devoted our careers to helping others.

In  our universe,  cutting school funding by more than $600 per student is a bad idea. Taking cops off the streets and firefighters out of firehouses is a bad idea. Cuts to pre-school and child health programs are bad ideas.  In less than two months the voters will decide what universe they are living in.  Governor,  if you believe all that, and health care benefits and pensions for public employees are a bad idea you must be living in an alternate universe.

In a little over a month, voters will decide which universe they live in – and we’re willing to bet – it’s a real one.

Crossposted on the BetterCA blog

Campaign News and Notes

It has been a busy week for the Alliance and for your intrepid bloggers.

Communications:
Acting on a press release from us the AP confronted the JoinArnold campaign about their “tell on a bad teacher” webform.  They immediately pulled it and the resulting AP story ran in 73 papers across the country.

Site additions:
We have been working hard to get new content up.  Right now we have downloadable flyers targeting various constituencies. More in various languages coming soon.

Friday is Bubba blogging.  Our trusty Alliance mascot/pet, the redbone hound now has his own feature, the Bubba Files.

Field:
There have been a number of actions this week, including the defense of the CTA building for people who thought it would be a good idea to hold a press conference attacking the union in front of the headquarters.

On the Air:
Arnold has gone live with his ads.  We have done some analysis/breakdown of each.  As always all of our ads are available for your viewing pleasure.

Comming Soon:  
Look for an official netroots outreach page filled with ways you can help the campaign.  For those kossacks with their own blog think about adding a link to us in your blog roll or grabbing the html Alliance button.

For the official weekly campaign update signup on the BetterCA site.