On Being Propositioned

There is a complicated inter-relationship between various propositions on the November ballot.  Prop 30 (the governor’s tax initiative) is paired against Prop 32 - a “paycheck protection” initiative that would largely cut unions out of political funding which often means funding Democrats.  Prop 32 is thus supported by Republicans and has gotten considerable campaign support from Charles Munger.

Prop 30 is also paired partly against Prop 38 - the Molly Munger school tax initiative.  So you have to keep track of your Mungers who are both aligned against 30 but not 32.  (Molly is the liberal who wants more money for schools than the governor’s initiative would provide.  Her Prop 38 is doing poorly in opinion polls but she keeps dumping money into its campaign coffers.  If both 30 and 38 were to pass, the one with more votes would become effective although there are some legal questions and there would likely be litigation.  But right now, it appears that 38 is unlikely to pass so the main result of the campaign for it may be to take votes from 30).  Charles is the conservative who doesn’t like unions in politics, or – more likely - just unions in general.  Got it?

For the latest on Charles’ contributions:

http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/2012/10/charles-munger-contributions-for-against-initiatives-nears-23-million.html

The LA Times today has an article about Democrats opposing 38 because they fear it will harm the chances for 30:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prop38-20121006,0,6163534.story

An earlier post on this blog featured several TV ads recently released by the Brown/pro-Prop 30 campaign.  We noted that there had been some radio ads against Prop 30 prior to that release and included one that was released the same day just before Brown launched his ads.  See http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/10/waiting-for-browns-first-prop-30-tv-ad.html

The anti-30 campaign now has a TV ad running:

As noted, however, the pro-30 campaign is linked to the anti-32 campaign.  And the anti-30 campaign is linked to the pro-32 campaign.

Here is an anti-32 TV ad:

And here is a pro-32 TV ad:

Here is a pro-38 ad (English and Spanish versions):

There does not appear to be an anti-38 TV campaign although there have been “issue” ads on radio and TV that are anti-tax in general.  See http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/08/issue-ads-may-quack-like-ducks.html and http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-tax-battle-begins.html

If you are somewhat confused about the inter-connections of the various propositions, here is another thing to be confused about.  One of the propositions on the November ballot is not an initiative but rather a referendum.  An initiative is a piece of legislation for voter consideration placed on the ballot by petition.  A referendum is a proposition designed either to endorse or repeal legislation already passed by the legislature.  It is also put on the ballot by petition.  However, if you want to endorse the legislation the referendum campaign is trying to get rid of, you vote “yes” (meaning that, yes, you in fact like the already-enacted legislation and don’t want to get rid of it) rather than “no” (meaning that you don’t like the already-enacted legislation and do want to get rid of it.  Prop 40 was put on the ballot via a GOP petition to repeal the redistricting of the state senate done by the voter-approved panel set up for that purpose.  (So, unlike a typical referendum, it was aimed at repealing something done by a special purpose "legislature.")  But the GOP has abandoned the campaign for various reasons.  So now even those who at first wanted you to vote “no” on 40 now tell you to vote “yes.”  

There is an LA Times article about this oddity today at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prop40-20121006,0,1641543.story

Bottom line: There are folks out there who want you to do something so you have to be careful: