Making the Case for a Sales Tax Hike Will Be a Real Trial

Will everyone stipulate that every facet of human endeavor is analogous to the O.J. Simpson trial?

Seeing no demurrers, let’s proceed.

Topic: How William J. Popejoy sells a half-cent tax increase to Orange County jurors.

For starters, this is going to be one of the most watched and hotly contested local issues in modern times. By the time the vote is taken June 27, news coverage on it will have dwarfed that for any other event in memory--if it hasn’t already. If you could televise a tax debate, this would be the one.

In the same way that the O.J. trial has gone way beyond being a crime story, the O.C. battle has gone way beyond being a tax story. This isn’t about pennies, it’s about passions.

With his public statements, Popejoy has already established the stakes for the fight: it’s all-or-nothing. No plea bargaining. His best sound-bite yet is “No Plan B.”

No one can say what O.C. jurors will do when they vote two months from now, but the working premise is that they’re hostile to Popejoy’s case. Plenty of indications, such as public opinion polls, suggest they’re coming into the case with a pronounced predisposition against him. Nothing personal, you understand, just a predisposition based on a profound distrust and anger toward authority figures in local government.

You can bet Popejoy is pacing at night. Like Marcia Clark, he tells himself he’s got lots of solid evidence on his side and that most rational or unbiased people would side with him. And, yet, his instincts tell him that he’s the underdog. There are lots of nights when he tells himself he’s wasting his time even trying to win.

Does he throw in the towel?

Hardly.

He can win his case, but the key for Popejoy is understanding the makeup of the jury. He may be right on the issues, but still lose the case. He’s got to convince jurors he’s one of them, that he talks their language, that he’s appealing to their best instincts, not their worst. Yes, he’s from Newport Beach and a millionaire, but he still has a stake in the county, just like they do. He has to make them believe that.

Credibility is critical. Without it, he’s dead meat. He can make his case all day long, but the jury will tune him out. With credibility, people will at least listen to his argument.

Some suggestions for establishing credibility and, as a consequence, prevailing in the end:

* Don’t oversell the case. Even if you believe it (and it’s somehow true), don’t tell the public that Orange County will become a “Third World economy” without the tax. When they think of the Third World, people think of young children begging for pennies on street corners in Lima, Peru. Don’t give the jury reason to doubt your message.

* Use expert witnesses, but only those who have the public’s trust. By definition, this eliminates all five county supervisors. It may be unfair to them, but it’s actually a win-win situation: they don’t want to testify on your behalf, and their doing so will probably only hurt your case, anyway. Let them take a powder on this one. Better witnesses would be PTA groups and coalitions of small and large businesses. Conservative non-governmental figures with some measure of public acceptance (Peter Ueberroth?) wouldn’t hurt, either.

* Talk to the jury in common-sense terms. Hammer away on the obvious logic that the public has been wronged because of financial mismanagement and that no one wants a tax increase, but that it only compounds the damage if the county walks away from its problem. Appeal to people’s intelligence. Make sure the public knows it doesn’t “win” if institutions suffer.

* Be aggressive but not hostile toward the opposition. They’re ticked off, and with good reason, and they aren’t idiots. Don’t be dismissive of them. On the other hand, force them to make their defense, which will have to be that the county won’t be any worse off without the tax. If their case is stronger than yours, so be it. But make them earn it; Don’t give them a free ride.

So, that’s the advice for Mr. Popejoy as he prepares for trial.

It’s a trial that has repercussions beyond Orange County. Over the next two months, voters here will give the country a good look at where the cut-the-government movement stands. Are we willing to pare government to the bone or below, as Popejoy will argue? Or will we decide that even though it costs us tax dollars, we still insist on a certain level of services?

With two months to go, the jury is still out on this one. Way, way out.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.