School Voucher Campaign Zeros In on Swing Voters : Election: Battle will likely be costly and bitter. An expected low turnout means sharpening the messages.
The supporters are an improbable but moneyed coalition of free-market conservatives, libertarians and Christian fundamentalists, spiced with a big name or two from the Ronald Reagan Administration.
Their pitch is simple: The school system is failing, test scores are abysmal, discipline is a thing of the past, and entrenched teachers unions resist change. The solution is competition: If forced to compete with private schools, they argue, public schools will have to improve.
The opponents--the unions representing teachers and other school employees at the core of the state education Establishment--say this “solution” is nothing short of evil. It would, they contend, undermine the very foundation of democracy, while helping the wealthy send their children to elite private academies.
The object of their battle: Proposition 174, the Education Vouchers Initiative on the Nov. 2 statewide ballot. The measure would for the first time offer parents tax-supported vouchers to help send their children to any school that accepts them, including private and parochial schools. Neither side doubts that the initiative would radically alter education in California.
With less than seven weeks to go until the election, each side is carefully devising quite different plans for driving home its arguments. Capturing a critical mass of voters in what is widely expected to be a low turnout election means sharpening and keenly targeting their campaign messages--and raising enough money to ensure that their side’s arguments prevail.
Pro-voucher forces say their main effort will be to consolidate their conservative base, draw in dissatisfied public school parents and get out the vote among private and parochial school parents, who polls show are among the measure’s strongest supporters.
The organized opposition says it will try to expand its base of public schoolteachers and employees to include suburban Republicans, and to persuade parents happy with their public schools that the initiative will wreck the system.
If money moves the message, the voucher opponents are ahead. The No on 174 effort raised $1.23 million in the first half of the year, and has mapped out a $10-million campaign--twice as much as the pro-Proposition 174 campaign plans to spend.
The Yes on 174 forces, operating from three separate committees, got off to a slow start, raising only $555,000 in the first half of this year. Their budget for the campaign is $5 million.
Given the money being discussed--and both sides’ belief that they are engaged in a war for the future of California--the campaign is certain to turn nasty.
“It’s not going to be a pretty campaign,” said Ken Khachigian, campaign manager for the Yes on 174 effort. A veteran of conservative Republican fights, Khachigian has a reputation for running aggressive, often successful campaigns.
With the measure trailing in opinion polls and the money race, and believing that only 5 million voters will turn out Nov. 2, Khachigian said he will not overlook any potential source of votes, no matter how small. He has assigned Stephen Guffanti, a former Vista school board member and one of the earliest backers of the initiative, to find volunteers and get out the vote. Guffanti has been prospecting for supporters by holding meetings at churches.
“We’re fighting an uphill battle,” said state Sen. Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove), a conservative businessman who donated $10,000 and is raising money for the voucher campaign. “What we’re saying is, let’s throw the whole thing (public schools) up in the air and see how we can make it come down and make it better.”
Hurtt is a political ally of Howard Ahmanson, a Christian fundamentalist and scion of the family that founded Home Savings of America. Ahmanson and his company, Fieldstead, have given $210,000 to the voucher campaign.
Hurtt and Ahmanson have the potential to raise far more. Their Allied Business Political Action Committee gave $915,000 to anti-abortion Republicans in the 1991-92 election cycle, making it the fourth-largest donor to state campaigns. The third-largest donor was the California Teachers Assn., the initiative’s main opponent, which spent $992,000 on legislative races.
So far, entrepreneurs motivated by their belief in the virtues of a free market have been the major source of big donations to the voucher measure. In years past, some were involved in Libertarian Party politics. The Libertarian Party, among the supporters of Proposition 174, opposes government involvement in most areas, including tax-supported schools.
A main intellectual force behind school vouchers is the Reason Foundation, a libertarian-oriented nonprofit institute in Los Angeles that advocates privatization of many government functions. Since the campaign began in late 1991, benefactors and trustees of Reason have donated more than $400,000 to the pro-voucher campaign.
One donor is Joseph Jacobs, who has given $70,000. The founder of Jacobs Engineering, a publicly traded engineering firm in Pasadena, Jacobs describes himself as a “compassionate conservative” and an avid adherent of a free-market philosophy.
Jacobs said government should take a role in schooling, but he decried the current system as “miserable.” Like American car makers that improved their products after challenges from foreign manufacturers, Jacobs said, the schools will improve only if they are faced with competition.
“The free-market system always produces a better product,” Jacobs said.
The organized opposition is raising questions, if not fears, about the radical changes that could result from the initiative: It would cost too much, lead to discrimination, the rich would benefit. Weirdos will open schools, get tax money and not be accountable for how they spend it.
Radio spots launched last month by the anti-voucher campaign point out that anyone who “rounds up” 25 kids can open a voucher-redeeming private school, with teachers who need no credentials and would not be required to teach basic courses.
To the delight of the opponents, a witches’ coven in Contra Costa County announced that it was thinking about opening a private school that would accept state-supported vouchers.
“Things happen in California,” said Ralph Flynn, executive director of the California Teachers Assn. “I don’t think anything is too bizarre, based on California’s track record.”
The California Teachers Assn. is the largest single contributor to the No on 174 campaign. In an article describing the fight, a group newsletter declared: “There are some proposals that are so evil that they should never even be presented to the voters.”
The 250,000-member group gave $1 million to the anti-voucher campaign in the first half of this year. Other donors include the Assn. of California School Administrators, which gave $150,750, the California Federation of Teachers, $25,000, and the California School Employees Assn., $42,000.
The initiative threatens public school employees at the most basic level--their paychecks. If public schools lose too many students, their jobs could be at risk, so they are almost certain to be motivated voters on Nov. 2.
“Turnout is everything,” Flynn said. “That is what the strategy is all about: vote by mail, the absentee ballots.”
Proposition 174 opponents are seeking to broaden their appeal beyond union members, who traditionally are Democrats, to include Republicans. The coalition hired the Sacramento firm of Nelson & Lucas Communications, whose principals came from Republican administrations and have been involved in Republican campaigns.
The move turned allies into political enemies. As recently as November, Khachigian worked with Rick Manter, manager of the anti-voucher effort, on conservative Bruce Herschensohn’s failed bid for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Barbara Boxer.
Donna Lucas, of Nelson & Lucas, was a protege of Khachigian’s in the George Deukmejian Administration. Lucas and Manter spend much of their time targeting Republican voters and trotting out GOP critics of the initiative.
“Suburban Republicans are key to our vote,” said Lucas, pointing out that although turnout is expected to be about 35%, suburban Republicans traditionally vote in disproportionately large numbers.
Gov. Pete Wilson has not yet taken a stand on the issue. Some conservative Republicans have come out against the measure, however, fearing that if the state gets involved in private schools by providing tax-funded vouchers, government will increase its regulation of the academies.
Under the law, private schools are lightly regulated. Moderate Republican Assemblyman Charles W. Quackenbush of San Jose said he is “offended by the lack of accountability” written into the initiative. If the measure passes, he said, public schools statewide will lose millions of dollars as vouchers are redeemed by students already enrolled in private schools. Such a loss of revenue would increase pressure on the Legislature to raise taxes, he said.
Others not involved in the campaigns point out a central problem faced by the initiative’s proponents: Older voters most likely to go the polls are the ones least likely to vote for radical change, particularly if it might cost money.
“They break out in a rash at the thought of unaccountable tax dollars,” said Richie Ross, a Democratic political consultant. Envisioning the reaction of older voters, Ross said: “ ‘You mean you can set up schools and teach people not to say the Pledge of Alliance? Any hippie can set up a school in the woods, and teach the children to run around naked? Not with my money.’ ”
Khachigian is trying to shore up his Republican support by playing on the public employee unions’ involvement, and pointing out that these organizations have opposed conservative initiatives and candidates. “You have to know who your friends are,” Khachigian said. “This is not one where the lion lies down with the lamb.”
