Prop. 82 Foes Will Focus on Its Details

Opponents of the universal preschool measure on the June ballot have yet to air a television ad or mail campaign leaflets to voters. But, led by business interests, they are raising money and building a coalition of sometimes surprising supporters behind a nuanced message -- they are not anti-preschool, but against the particulars of Proposition 82.

“The shorthand for this is: The more you know about the measure, the less you like it,” said Bill Hauck, president of the Sacramento-based California Business Roundtable and a board member of the anti-Proposition 82 effort. “Not that you don’t like preschool, but you don’t like this measure.”

Proposition 82 would tax the state’s wealthiest individuals, raising an estimated $2.4 billion annually to fund preschool, taught by teachers with bachelor’s degrees, for all children.

Proponents, led by Hollywood director Rob Reiner, argue that the measure would help narrow the achievement gap between rich and poor, and between whites and minorities. Opponents counter that the measure is ballot-box budgeting that will hamstring future legislatures and create a subsidy for well-off Californians who currently pay for preschool.

In any case, the proposition’s feel-good subject matter -- spending on 4-year-olds -- is forcing opponents to carefully tailor their arguments, according to John Pitney Jr., a government professor at Claremont McKenna College.

“You don’t want to open a speech by saying, ‘This is why I’m against free preschool,’ ” he said. “A statement like that flunks the grimace test.”

Opposition leaders would have to base their arguments on claims that are likely to sway voters, such as scarcity of state dollars, existing K-12 education needs -- and recent contentions that public money was spent to support Reiner’s political ambitions, he said.

So far, the biggest campaign buzz has focused on the director’s role as chairman of a state commission that spent $23 million airing ads extolling the benefits of preschool at the same time Reiner was launching Proposition 82. The spending is being audited by the state, and Reiner has denied any wrongdoing. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not taken a position on the proposition, has come under pressure to replace Reiner on the First 5 California Children and Families Commission, but has thus far refused.

The opposition has not publicly trumpeted the conflict-of-interest allegations, though newspapers across the nation have covered the issue and several California papers have published editorials urging Reiner’s departure.

“We’re not focused on that,” Hauck said. “We are focused on the substance of the measure, and we are going to stay focused on the substance of the measure. Ultimately, that’s what will be important to voters.”

Few voters have a fixed notion of the proposition this early. A Field Poll this month found that although 55% of likely voters supported Proposition 82 once it was described to them, nearly two-thirds had been unaware of it. Voters who were familiar with the proposition were slightly more likely to oppose it than voters who had not heard of it.

Hauck highlighted the defection of state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata from the pro-Proposition 82 camp as evidence that voters would turn against the measure once educated about it.

Perata (D-Oakland), initially a backer, withdrew his support in a Feb. 28 letter to Reiner. “A thorough review of Proposition 82 provokes serious doubt about targeting billions of tax dollars in the manner and methods dictated in the initiative,” he wrote. “ ... Upon reflection, I believe Prop. 82 would become yet another obstacle impeding prudent governance of the state.”

The anti-Proposition 82 campaign will make its case to voters on two fronts, educational and financial. Its website highlights flaws in the K-12 system, and notes that the $2.4 billion that would be raised annually by the measure could pay for 69,000 new teachers, more than a million computers, or $8,400 in textbooks and supplies for every California classroom. They are not arguing, however, for those expenditures.

Hauck said opponents were trying to broaden their coalition to include educators as well as business and taxpayer groups. The group’s website lists more than 170 supporters, including dozens of Montessori preschools who fear their unique classroom structure would be impossible under Proposition 82 constraints.

If the ballot measure is successful, the state will offer free half-day preschool to every 4-year-old by 2010. Classes would be limited to 20 children, tended by one credentialed teacher with a bachelor’s degree and an assistant. Some Montessori school leaders are concerned they could be driven out of business, since their philosophy calls for larger class sizes that include different age groups, and their teachers have different qualifications.

Some traditional educators, including several teachers, the Fresno County superintendent of schools and the Irvine Unified School District, are against the measure. The Irvine district’s school board is believed to be the first in the state to pass a resolution opposing the proposition, arguing that priority should be given to funding existing schools and addressing the state’s budget deficit.

Irvine Supt. Dean Waldfogel spoke gingerly of the resolution, adopted this month. “It’s not that we’re against preschool as much as it is we’re against the timing, and the dollars that we believe should go to solve the core K-12 problems that exist without taking on new initiatives at this time.”

Other groups listed as opponents are outside the mainstream, such as home-schooling proponents “Excellence in Education,” whose website declares that “schooling and education are mutually exclusive.”

Proposition 82 backers counter that most traditional educators, including the California Teachers Assn., support the measure, and dismiss the limited number of educators opposing it as cover for the anti-tax groups and business interests who they say are actually running the opposition committee.

“Saying they have a broad coalition is just not even close to being true,” said Proposition 82 spokesman Nathan James. “They have anti-tax activists and they have a bunch of business groups.”

At this point, the leadership of the opponents’ main committee is entirely drawn from groups such as the California Chamber of Commerce and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. And the funding behind the anti-Proposition 82 effort is almost exclusively from businesses and wealthy individuals, such as $100,000 from Redondo Beach-based Baron Real Estate and $25,000 each from Gap billionaire John Fisher and the California Business Roundtable’s political action committee. Two committees registered with the state as opposing Proposition 82 have raised more than $400,000.

Opposition fundraising has been outdone by proposition supporters, whose primary committee has raised nearly $4.5 million, including nearly $1.2 million from Reiner and his father Carl, and $850,000 in union money. Supporters’ coffers have also been boosted by the deep pockets of Hollywood heavyweights such as Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, as well as civic boosters such as philanthropist Eli Broad and Schwarzenegger’s former education secretary, Richard Riordan.

Despite the fundraising imbalance, Pitney predicted that the vote would be close.