Voucher Group Charges Misuse of State Phones : Elections: Campaign cites records showing 330 calls from Department of Education to initiative opponents. Official says there was no wrongdoing.

State Department of Education officials used state phones on state time to place hundreds of calls to campaign consultants and others working to defeat the school vouchers initiative, supporters of the measure charged Thursday.

Citing records of phone calls from state education officials to political consultants, backers of Proposition 174 called on acting Supt. of Public Instruction Dave Dawson to resign, and asked for investigations into the use of state resources for electioneering.

Ken Khachigian, consultant to the badly underfunded Yes on 174 campaign, called the phone calls “clear circumstantial evidence that there has been extremely close cooperation” between the department and opponents of the measure.

“It’s this smug (attitude): ‘Hey, we’re in this together, folks. You help us, we’ll help you,’ ” Khachigian said. “I think that’s wrong. The taxpayers paid for this. It went to excess. They went overboard.”

Khachigian said he was not accusing anyone of a crime. Although use of state resources in an election could be a misdemeanor, there is no law against state officials responding to inquiries from political consultants. Khachigian also acknowledged that political leaders have a right to take stands on issues of the day, but said the 330 calls from state phones during a three-month period were excessive.

Susan Lange, spokesman for Dawson, said that Dawson has no plans to resign and that the department would welcome an investigation.

“We have nothing to hide,” Lange said. She would not, however, publicly discuss details of the phone calls, saying: “We’re not going to go through every phone call with every reporter who calls. It’s not a good use of our time.”

Khachigian convened the news conference in the wake of polls this week by The Times and the Field Institute showing the education vouchers initiative trailing by more than 2 to 1. The Yes on 174 campaign has struggled to counter the more than $10-million campaign waged by the initiative’s opponents.

The measure on the Nov. 2 ballot would give parents of school age children annual tax-supported vouchers of about $2,600 for private school tuition. State officials oppose the proposal on grounds that it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars in initial years and take money from public schools.

Phone records obtained through the Public Records Act by the Yes on 174 campaign reflect outgoing calls from the Department of Education in Sacramento for June, July and August. The cost was minor--$36--but the calls took up more than 15 hours.

The calls went to political consultants, lawyers and teachers unions opposing the voucher initiative.

“If they would bill in the private sector $75 or $100 an hour, figure it out,” Khachigian said. “You figure in the cost of the faxes, the Xerox machines, the office space, the desks. (In the Yes on 174 campaign) I have to pay for all that stuff.”

Rick Manter, campaign manager for No on 174, called the attack “shrill,” adding: “If they had anything productive to say about Proposition 174, they’d be saying it, instead of suing everyone in California who opposes it.”

Donna Lucas, president of Nelson & Lucas Communications, which is running the anti-voucher campaign, acknowledged that phone calls were made. “We’ve called the department and they’ve returned our phone calls,” she said. “They are the ultimate source of education in California. If they didn’t respond, we would have a problem, because that is their job.”

Khachigian’s accusations came as lawyers for the voucher campaign pressed a suit in Los Angeles alleging that the State Department of Education and five school districts in Central and Southern California, used government resources to attempt to defeat the initiative.

Mark Bucher, who chairs Orange County’s pro-174 effort, said he would follow the statewide campaign’s lead and investigate the telephone records of several local school superintendents and school offices.

The Yes on 174 campaign also has asked the Orange County district attorney to investigate whether local school officials have spent public time or money fighting the initiative. The telephone records, Bucher said, could provide evidence for the lawsuit.

“I am personally going to get the records and we’ll see who starts sweating,” Bucher said Thursday.

In Antelope Valley, Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne issued a temporary restraining order against the Westside Union School District, but stopped short of an order barring all political activity on state time by education officials statewide.

In the Westside Union district, an initiative supporter visited the offices of six local schools seeking information about the measure. At every school he was given only literature opposing Proposition 174, court documents said.

Wayne wrote that at the other schools, including three in Los Angeles, the distribution of No on 174 materials by teachers appear to be isolated incidents unlikely to be repeated or were insignificant violations of the law.

“This is a very limited order,” Wayne said. “In no way is it going to stop teachers from discussing the issue in school. They just can’t be heavy-handed in the way it is presented to students.”

Times education writer Stephanie Chavez contributed to this story.