Voter Sympathies Lie With Teachers, Unions Say of Election Gains

Normally conservative Orange County voters elected union candidates in record numbers in Tuesday’s school district elections because voters have become sympathetic to teachers, various union officials said Wednesday.

“I think people in Orange County perceive teacher unions differently,” said Bill Bianchi, executive director of the West Orange County United Teachers. “This is in no means meant to denigrate our brother and sister unions in the AFL-CIO, but I think people regard teacher unions as being more like professional associations.”

And a union survey four years ago, he said, “found that voters want to know how teacher associations feel about candidates--that it’s very important to voters in making up their minds.”

Bianchi said that teacher unions therefore are not being shy about taking stands and endorsing candidates in elections, and even recruiting candidates. “That’s what we did in Huntington Beach Union High School District,” Bianchi said. “We sought out the candidates, and we made sure they’d be acceptable to our membership.”

All three union-endorsed candidates won in that district Tuesday. Similarly, union candidates won both seats in Tustin Unified, carried all three seats in Saddleback Community College District, and won both races in Coast Community College District.

In interviews, union officials attributed their victories to a variety of ingredients. Some said job actions, such as the teachers’ strike last month in Tustin, alerted voters to the troubles teachers were having. Other union officials said they spent money carefully in the race. In the Huntington Beach Union High School District, for instance, the union bought lists of people who consistently voted and targeted them for campaign mail instead of sending literature to all voters.

‘Very Liberal’ Voters

Bianchi and other teacher union officials said the victories show that voters sympathize with the teachers and want to help them. “In the area of human rights, Orange County voters are very liberal,” Bianchi said.

But others--notably some of the losers in Tuesday’s races--said they see Tuesday’s elections as little more than special-interest groups’ ability to capitalize on voter apathy in Orange County. Critics of the union sweep said the low (11% countywide) voter turnout benefited the unions.

“It’s a dangerous thing,” said veteran Coast Community College District trustee Richard E. Olson, who lost Tuesday to a union candidate. “The unions are saying: ‘Agree with us or we’ll get rid of you.’ ”

But Judith Ackley, president of the teachers’ union in the Coast district, said the union only wants trustees to be open to the union’s point of view.

“I don’t think the union wants to be in control of the board at all,” she said. “What we want to do is have elected officials who are responsive, both to the students and the faculty.”

Barnet Resnick, a Coast district trustee who was ousted two years ago in the union’s first round of victories, said Wednesday that election of union candidates brings a built-in conflict of interest. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again,” Resnick said. “You create a situation where the fox is guarding the henhouse.”

Officials of the Tustin Educators Assn. said they believe voters will oust incumbents--as they did in Tustin--when they perceive injustice. According to the Tustin teachers, the incumbent school board at Tustin has been unfair in bargaining for a new contract.

Message Driven Home

After a six-day strike, Tustin teachers drove home their message, union officials said. The result, they said, was the ouster of two incumbents by union candidates.

Jane Bauer, an attorney who was one of the successful Tustin candidates, said Wednesday that the teachers strike “alerted the public that there were things to be concerned about” in the school district. Bauer said Tustin voters were saying: “We do care; we do want some changes.”

But there were others who took darker views.

Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) charged Wednesday that the statewide California Teachers Assn. (CTA) is trying to dominate all school districts in the state.

“It (the CTA) is not an organization dedicated to education,” he said. “It is a political party masquerading as a union.”

Before the election, administration officials in the Tustin district had charged that the CTA was making a concerted drive to get the district to agree to mandatory union membership. CTA officials, however, said their primary goal is to help the teachers in Tustin win an equitable pay settlement.

Money and Exposure

Robert Price, who has been on the Saddleback Community College District Board of Trustees for eight years and who lost to a union-backed candidate on Tuesday, said: “It’s the old story: money and exposure get votes. They (the union) spent a lot of money, and they were getting a lot of exposure for the names of their candidates.

“Previously, our elections in this district have mainly been low-profile races where citizens offer themselves to be candidates and don’t spend a lot of time and money. . . .”

But union officials said Tuesday’s elections were more of a “voice of the people” than anything else.

Sandy Banis, president of the Tustin Educators Assn., said the key to winning the election was “getting the parents to become aware.” When the parents learned the facts, she said, they responded.

“It was wonderful,” Banis said. “We teachers had been told so many times that the community wasn’t in sympathy with us. When those votes came in, we all felt so elated.”

Times staff writer Lanie Jones contributed to this story.