Election Wrapup : Valley Voters Solidly Reject Voucher Initiative

Despite their traditional antipathy toward Los Angeles public schools, voters in the San Fernando Valley were solidly opposed to the school voucher initiative on Tuesday’s ballot, according to election data released Wednesday.

By an average of nearly 2 to 1, voters in the four City Council districts that cover most of the Valley turned thumbs down on Proposition 174, which would have made tax dollars available to parents to enroll their children in private schools.

Valley voters generally followed voters statewide on the other six propositions on the ballot. Local voters favored the continuation of a half-cent state sales tax for local law enforcement but rejected an initiative that would have made it easier to pass bonds for school construction.

Backed by the state Republican Party, wealthy libertarians and Christian fundamentalists, the voucher initiative, Proposition 174, sought to capitalize on public anger toward crime, poor test results and high dropout rates in the public schools.

But opponents said the voucher plan was discriminatory, lacked proper controls on the spending of tax dollars and would destroy the public school system by draining away billions of dollars over time.

In the Valley, the no vote on 174 ranged from 61.5% in Councilman Hal Bernson’s affluent, mostly Anglo northwest Valley district, to 66.4% in the poorer, heavily Latino northeast Valley district of Councilman Richard Alarcon, according to results released Wednesday by the Los Angeles voter registrar’s office.

Alarcon said voters in his district “simply couldn’t see giving tax dollars to a private school system without knowing what they were getting for it.”

“Most people just had a real hard time with the church and state issue,” he said of 174, which would have provided parents with an annual voucher of $2,600 to place their children in the school of their choice, including private religious schools.

Several analysts said they saw no contradiction between Valley voters’ widespread dissatisfaction with the mammoth Los Angeles Unified School District and their objection to the voucher proposal. Valley residents made up the core of the anti-busing movement in the 1970s, and more recently, the region served as the political springboard for efforts to break up the 640,000-student LAUSD.

Republican political consultant Paul Clarke of Northridge said that regardless of local voters’ irritation with the school district, they saw 174 as too radical and financially unsound. While Valley residents turned down school vouchers, he noted, they also rejected Proposition 170, the school bond initiative.

“The majority of people would like to see the public schools get better rather than dragging their kids off to private school,” Clarke said.

“If people were inclined to pull their children out of public school and put them into private schools, there would never have been an anti-busing movement. But because people have a basic desire to have good public schools, they’re willing to fight for them.”

Clarke also noted that voucher proponents were heavily outspent by opponents, who mounted a far more effective campaign. Supporters had about $2.5 million to spend, while opponents poured more than $17 million into television and radio ads and other activities.

Opponents also made good use of “the basic scare tactic that (voucher-redeeming schools) would be run by Christian right-wingers. And let’s face it: There’s a large Jewish population here which is not going to be putting votes behind something like that,” Clarke said.

Overall, however, Valley voters were not as strongly opposed to 174 as those in the city, or statewide. While the Valleywide no vote was about 64%, voters statewide downed the measure by nearly 70%. Citywide, the no vote was more than 71%.

While turning down 174, Valley voters backed Proposition 172, which made permanent a half-cent state sales tax boost.

Revenue from the tax goes to finance city and county public safety programs. Valley voters supported the measure nearly 3 to 2.