State Ballot, Wider Impact

Even before the ballot is set, California’s special election is drawing money and attention from interest groups and political partisans across the country who see the campaign as a way to invigorate their efforts in 2006 and beyond.

Democrats believe they have a chance this fall to make Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger “a starring villain” in their attack on national Republican leaders, said Jenny Backus, a Democratic strategist in Washington.

Conservative activists see an opportunity to defang a longtime nemesis -- organized labor -- by making it harder to collect union dues for political purposes.

The pharmaceutical industry and consumer groups are waging a battle over prescription drugs that both sides consider a test case for fights in Congress and elsewhere.

“California’s always a state that the rest of the nation looks to,” said Michelle Korsmo, executive vice president of Americans for Prosperity, a Washington group that favors limited government. By approving a budget cap sponsored by Schwarzenegger, voters would demonstrate that “controlling the growth of state spending is not a red- or blue-state issue,” Korsmo said, spurring limitation efforts in other states.

Eight initiatives have qualified for the statewide ballot, which will bring voters to the polls for the fourth time in as many years. The measures deal with a variety of issues, including parental consent for abortions, teacher tenure and electricity re-regulation, as well as union dues, redistricting, prescription drugs and the state budget.

However, much about the election remains uncertain -- including how vigorously the two major political parties will go at each other.

Schwarzenegger has embraced three of the measures as part of a package designed to circumvent the Democrat-run Legislature and diminish the clout of lawmakers in Sacramento. Those measures would lengthen the time teachers work before receiving tenure, give the governor greater control over state spending and give legislators’ political line-drawing power to a panel of retired judges.

But with opinion polls showing both Schwarzenegger and the Legislature falling in public esteem -- and the redistricting and budget measures opposed by most voters -- talks have been underway on a possible deal to place alternative measures on the ballot with the blessing of both sides. Voters would then be urged to pass the bipartisan versions, the way they did last November when presented with a compromise initiative -- supplanting an earlier draft -- that made it harder for Sacramento to raid local government coffers.

A deal between lawmakers and the governor could quickly take the starch out of national Democrats’ anti-Schwarzenegger efforts. It would also leave the two Democrats running for governor, Treasurer Phil Angelides and Controller Steve Westly, in a politically awkward position, caught between their ambitions and the party’s legislators. That provides added incentive for the governor to deal, though he faces division between his more moderate advisors and administration conservatives who would prefer a fight.

Democrats outside Sacramento are not shying away from a scrap, seeing a chance to lump Schwarzenegger with Republicans in Washington and the GOP’s pattern of “arrogance and abuse,” in the words of Karen Finney, a national Democratic Party spokeswoman.

Taking down the high-profile celebrity governor would give Democrats nationwide a significant morale boost heading into the 2006 elections. “He’s the hottest commodity in the country when it comes to riling up Republicans, and he’s also one of the hottest commodities in the country when it comes to riling up Democrats,” said Democratic strategist Backus.

With so much uncertainty surrounding the November vote -- and the fight over a Supreme Court vacancy consuming Washington for the next few months -- many outside interest groups are waiting to see the final ballot before committing money or personnel to California. Korsmo, for instance, said her organization -- which claims 35,000 members in the state -- would like to see an even tougher version of the spending limitation measure.

But even if a bipartisan deal is reached on the governor’s proposals, that still leaves the two measures drawing the most interest from outside the state: the initiatives dealing with prescription drugs and union dues.

Already, the pharmaceutical industry has contributed more than $30 million to promote a ballot measure establishing a voluntary discount drug program, modeled on a deal negotiated with Schwarzenegger but rejected by the state Senate.

A rival measure, sponsored by Health Access California, a consumer group, would offer more extensive coverage and penalize drug companies that failed to offer discounts. It has been vigorously opposed by the pharmaceutical industry, which recently lost a court battle to keep the initiative off the ballot.

Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, said lately he has had “at least one or two conversations a day with people in D.C. and other states” interested in the competing ballot measures.

“All of my colleagues in other states know a victory in California would have national implications in terms of the attempt to bring down the cost of prescription drugs,” Wright said.

Similarly, both sides in the fight over union dues see a national stake in November’s outcome.

The initiative, sponsored by conservative activist Lewis Uhler, would require the annual consent of any member of a California public employee union before a portion of his or her dues could be used for political campaigns.

The measure, dubbed “paycheck protection” by its proponents, has drawn widespread support from conservatives across the country, who believe the initiative could slash the money available to unions, which generally support Democratic candidates and causes.

“If it passes, it will be so significant and the effects will be so dramatic that you would see a dozen initiatives on the ballots [in other states] within two to four years,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington group, and one of the leading strategists on the political right.

For some, such as proponents of school vouchers, approving a dues checkoff would be a first step toward achieving larger goals that have long been thwarted by union opposition. Vouchers would allow the use of some public education funds in private schools.

“It’s no secret that for years one of the stumbling blocks to the implementation of voucher plans has been the war chest of teacher unions,” said Lance Izumi, education director at the Pacific Research Institute, a conservative California think tank. A dues checkoff “has always been an issue on the radar screen for proponents of vouchers,” he said.

For their part, unions and their Democratic allies are treating the initiative as a matter of political life and death. As part of their negotiations with Schwarzenegger, Democrats hope to persuade the governor to stay neutral on the initiative, which they call “paycheck deception.” That would deny proponents the benefit of Schwarzenegger’s considerable fundraising clout.

In the meantime, California union officials are appealing to national leaders to put their money and muscle behind efforts to defeat the ballot measure -- even as the national labor movement is engaged in an unrelated fight between the AFL-CIO and dissident unions.

“Unions in California are very together about this goal,” said Art Pulaski, head of the California Labor Federation.

Already, the National Education Assn. has committed more than $2 million to the opposition fight, and the special election is expected to be a topic of wide discussion when the group meets for its national convention in Los Angeles this week. Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Assn., said the group has received checks -- “some for $5, $10, some for $100” -- from individuals across the country “who know what happens in California tends to spread.”

By contrast, proponents of the dues checkoff have downplayed the influence and financial support of outside interests, mindful of the campaign waged to defeat a similar, albeit broader, initiative in 1998. Unions and their Democratic allies attacked Norquist and others as part of a movement by out-of-state conservatives to silence unions and promote an anti-worker agenda in California.

Norquist, who put up $440,000 to qualify the previous initiative, has not matched that contribution this time, nor does he plan to. There is plenty of money and support within California to pass the dues checkoff without his help, he said.