Prop. 226 Appears Headed for Defeat

Proposition 226, the widely watched union dues initiative, appeared headed toward defeat in exit polling Tuesday night, while the vote on Proposition 227, the anti-bilingual education measure, was cruising toward victory.

Both measures were the focus of national attention and the subject of bruising, multimillion-dollar television advertising blitzes, which appeared to sway voter opinion in the days before the election.

Exit polls showed Proposition 226--which would require employers and labor unions to obtain a worker’s permission each year before withholding wages or union dues for political purposes--faring badly.

The measure became a life-or-death issue for the American labor movement, which poured millions of dollars into the effort to defeat it in California before it could spread throughout the country, pushed by the Republican Party.

Going into election day, Proposition 226 was ahead by a 51%-37% margin in polling of likely voters last month. But exit polls Tuesday showed Proposition 226 losing 61% to 39%.

Gov. Pete Wilson, though not conceding defeat, predicted that the measure’s fate in California will have little effect on the national movement for so-called paycheck protection, which is being pushed in nearly 30 states.

“It won’t hurt it nationally,” said Wilson, who was point man for the proposition. “It will succeed in a number of states.”

At Republican Party election night headquarters in Newport Beach, Wilson also chided foes of Proposition 226, who mounted a $22-million campaign of slashing TV ads and ubiquitous phone banks to undermine the solid early support that the measure enjoyed.

“The opposition didn’t tell the truth,” the governor said. “They told lies. . . . If people had understood the issues, even union members, it would have passed in a landslide.”

At the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, where the No on 226 forces watched televised returns and munched on sandwiches, Art Pulaski--co-chairman of the campaign and an executive with the California Labor Federation said he was encouraged by the early indications.

The measure looked like it was split in absentee returns, where Pulaski said labor-oriented measures never do well because such ballots are usually cast by “rich white folks” who are going out of town.

But the exit polls, Pulaski said, were “dramatic.” If those numbers hold up as the vote count continues, he said it would show that people realize that Proposition 226 was a “thinly veiled attempt to silence the worker’s voice.” Pulaski said that workers from 2,000 labor unions around California had galvanized in opposition to the measure for the first time “in generations”

In contrast, Proposition 227, the hotly contested anti-bilingual education measure, was heading toward victory.

But Alice Callaghan, director of Las Familias del Pueblo in Los Angeles and a backer of the measure, said the whole effort to virtually dismantle bilingual instruction “has been encouraging.” Callaghan’s organization supported Spanish-speaking parents who boycotted Ninth Street Elementary School two years ago until the school agreed to teach the children to read and write in English. The two-week boycott prompted Silicon Valley software millionaire Ron Unz to sponsor Proposition 227, Callaghan said.

Speaking to supporters at the Omni Hotel in Los Angeles, Unz refused to predict the result of the election but said, “I think we’re going to win a resounding victory, which will mark the beginning of the end of bilingual education in the U.S.”

With less than 2% of California’s precincts reporting, the outcome of the other initiatives, including Proposition 223, which would bar school districts from spending more than 5% of their budgets on administration beginning in the 1999-2000 school year, was unclear.

Of the nine measures on Tuesday’s ballot, Propositions 226 and 227 created the biggest furor, prompted more spending in a big-money year and were highest on the national radar screen during this political season.

Republican strategists across the country kept a close eye on Proposition 226. Depending on its fate--at the ballot box and, perhaps later, in the courts--GOP activists want to export the measure nationwide in an effort to reduce labor contributions to Democratic candidates.

The two sides raised and spent more than $25 million, making the contest one of the most expensive proposition battles in California history. Opponents spent at least $22 million, outgunning the proposition’s creators and supporters, who spent more than $4 million to put the measure on the ballot and push it.

A Los Angeles Times poll released 10 days ago showed that support for Proposition 226 had eroded significantly. At that time, likely voters backed the measure by a 51%-37% margin, down from 66%-26% in April.

But support for Proposition 227 remained rock-solid and in fact grew in the Latino community, according to that same poll, which showed voters backing the initiative by a 63%-23% margin.

Unlike racially charged predecessors on previous California ballots, Proposition 227 was favored by 62% of registered Latino voters, not much different from the 64% of registered white voters who supported it.

Interestingly, however, the head of one of the most prominent Spanish-language media companies in the nation gave $1.5 million from his own pocket to beat Proposition 227--nearly twice what millionaire Unz spent.

The anti-bilingual education measure had California educators in a bind, wondering just how they would carry on in the brave new educational world should it pass. About 1.4 million students in the state have limited English skills, and about a third of them are in formal bilingual education programs.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, about 1,000 teachers who favor bilingual education have signed pledges to oppose or disobey Proposition 227. Two districts--the San Mateo-Foster City School District in Northern California and the Saddleback Valley Unified School District in Orange County--have asked state regulators to have the terms of the initiative waived.

The Los Angeles district will feel the greatest impact from the measure because it has more students with limited English skills than any other system in the state--44% of the 680,000 students enrolled.

The district was also a big player in the battle over Proposition 223--a measure that got far less attention than its flashier, racially tinged cousin, but has the potential to affect California education significantly.

Some Northern California critics of Proposition 223 likened the measure to the water wars that rend California in two, calling it the “peripheral canal” of education. Consider its supporters--Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and United Teachers-Los Angeles--and its opponents--the state PTA, the Assn. of California School Administrators and the California School Boards Assn.

The proposition, which would affect the 90% of school districts whose administrative spending is more than 5% of their budgets, gives the Los Angeles district an unfair advantage because its size allows for economies of scale, critics charge. Smaller districts, they say, will be hard-pressed to cover their administrative costs with just 5% of their total budgets.