Labor Upset Prop. 226 by Focusing on Backers

It was a political buzzer beater, like Michael Jordan hitting a winning jumper to cap a big comeback.

Down 50 points in early opinion polls, organized labor pulled off a startling come-from-behind victory to defeat Proposition 226, the “paycheck protection” measure that threatened to dry up union money for politics.

And like any winning effort, labor’s comeback began with the fundamentals, the details that can provide an edge.

It began 18 months before election day, with an anonymous legislative staffer and a photocopying machine in the state Capitol.

The Democratic aide came across a sheaf of papers mistakenly left behind on the copier one day in early 1997. The bundle was an opinion poll apparently commissioned by conservatives. Among the survey topics was paycheck protection.

The staffer took it to Democratic leaders, who shared it with the California Teachers Assn., a powerful player in state politics. The CTA hired a consultant to find out who was behind the push for paycheck protection. They discovered a national web of Republican donors and conservative think tanks.

Thus were sowed, months before Proposition 226 even qualified for the ballot, the seeds of a political message, of the argument ultimately used to defeat the measure: that out-of-state conservatives wanted to silence unions and push an anti-worker agenda.

Tested in focus groups, refined by strategists, that message found voice in TV commercials that Proposition 226 foes began airing a full six weeks before election day. They were slashing and unapologetic, railing that Proposition 226 was “the big lie,” that it would actually hurt public schools, weaken Medicare, export jobs.

Combined with an aggressive telephone and door-to-door push by thousands of union volunteers, labor’s media blitz helped undercut public support for the initiative, which would have required that unions get annual permission from members before using dues for politics. Days after the first commercial started airing, a statewide poll found that support for the ballot measure--once backed by seven of 10 Californians--was in a free fall.

It was a pivotal moment: Although Proposition 226 proponents griped that unions were waging the state’s most deceitful campaign in recent memory, organized labor achieved a stunning election day triumph. In the final tally, 53% of voters rejected Proposition 226.

“We just presented the truth about our opponents’ political agenda,” said Dean Tipps, state leader of the 300,000-member Service Employees International Union. “This proposition had nothing to do with protecting individual union members and everything to do with sapping their ability to have a voice in the political process.”

The measure’s boosters, however, contend that organized labor paved a path to victory with dollar bills. Though unions say that at best they outspent the pro-226 camp by 3 to 1, measure boosters contend that it was more like 10 to 1.

“We were vastly outspent,” said Mark Bucher, a Yes on 226 leader. “With enough money, even the best idea can be shot down.”

But the campaign against Proposition 226 was no slam dunk.

Wilson’s Arrival Fuels Campaign

After lucking into the waylaid opinion poll in the Capitol and later watching as the ballot measure was introduced, union leaders gathered in San Diego last year to strategize.

It wasn’t going to be an easy fight. The proposition seemed unassailable. Who could argue with letting union members decide how their dues money is spent? Focus groups only heightened fears that voters would be hard to sway.

So instead of focusing on the measure’s substance, foes went after its backers.

The effort to put 226 on the ballot was dominated by three forceful personalities.

Grover Norquist, a conservative ally of Newt Gingrich, and his Americans for Tax Reform put up $441,000 to qualify the initiative. J. Patrick Rooney, an Indiana insurance executive and champion of conservative causes, also helped the ballot drive. Gov. Pete Wilson joined after the measure was introduced about a year ago and later took command of the California campaign.

Wilson’s arrival was “like waving a red flag in front of us,” said Dan Terry, president of the 23,000-member California Professional Firefighters union. “All of a sudden, this governor who has not been a friend of labor is out championing an effort for workers. It was easy to see through.”

Worried that Wilson might tap the big wallets of California’s business community, union officials in November launched a counterattack. They hunkered with officials at the state Chamber of Commerce and manufacturing groups, making an ominous pitch: If business didn’t stay out, unions would launch initiative campaigns to take away $10 billion in tax credits and curb campaign contributions.

The scenario was, in effect, mutually assured destruction.

“There never was any kind of deal,” Terry said. “It was an unspoken thing.”

It worked. Although Wilson pleaded with business to get into the fray, his California fund-raising never ignited.

By the start of the year, labor leaders were fighting to turn their own members against 226. Polls showed more than 66% of all union members supporting the measure.

Anti-226 videotapes were distributed, meetings were held at job sites, telephone calls were made. The argument was nearly always the same: There was a hidden agenda behind the measure that could affect everything from benefits to working conditions.

“My union is 50% Republican, and they got it as clearly as anybody else,” said Terry of the firefighters. “I believe we were probably at 80% or 85% in opposition by election day.”

The average voter was a tougher sell. The anti-226 message proved difficult to translate into a 30-second TV commercial.

“There wasn’t one clear thing we could use to blow up 226,” recalled Dawn Laguens, the Washington media consultant for the measure’s foes.

The anti-226 forces readied an ad featuring an actor peering at a ballot pamphlet with a magnifying glass. It implored viewers to look at who was behind 226.

But they were beaten to the airwaves. Gale Kaufman, the consultant who led the anti-226 effort in California, recalled falling into a panic when a conservative Washington think tank started airing a commercial warning workers that unions were spending dues on politics without their permission.

But those advertisements had a critical flaw, Kaufman said: They mentioned that workers had an existing remedy under federal law, an argument that opponents of Prop. 226 had been making all along.

“It was a defining moment,” Kaufman said. “Had their early commercial been more effective, we could have been hurt.”

Instead, the anti-226 commercials resonated with voters, speeding the decline of the measure and rallying the spirits of unions’ rank and file, according to opinion polls.

By May, the telephone war was revving up. It focused on Republican and independent households, delivering the message that dues authorization forms required by the ballot measure could become public and expose police to danger. The proposition’s backers bristled, calling that argument a red herring.

The proposition’s opponents also got a boost from nonprofit groups. A month before election day, the United Way--which has ties to organized labor--consulted lawyers and issued a news release warning that Prop. 226 could pose problems for charities.

Outraged, Wilson and others got the group to retract the statement. But the damage was done. Other charities, including the American Cancer Society, announced their opposition to Prop. 226. Kaufman and Laguens produced a commercial highlighting such endorsements, an effective ploy with surveys showing a quarter of the electorate still undecided.

“These are white-hat organizations that don’t have a dog in the fight,” Terry said. “And they’re saying, ‘Hey, this affects us.’ That means something to people.”

Mistakes Made by Prop. 226 Backers

Meanwhile, Proposition 226 supporters took a few missteps.

Norquist failed to deliver on a vow to produce $10 million in contributions from Republican circles. The Republican National Committee also never came through in a big way, leaving the Wilson forces scrambling for donors.

The pro-226 TV campaign was aggressive in the final weeks, featuring a spot depicting a smoky room where a cigar-chomping union boss counted dues money. That was a mistake, Kaufman and others said later: The measure’s supporters spent too much time countering charges instead of promoting their cause.

“A lot of their advertising was focused on our advertising,” Kaufman said. “They had a simple message, but they complicated it by running against us.”

On election day, the union rank and file mobilized like the best of armies. Organizers say that so many union volunteers showed up in some spots that there weren’t enough precincts for them to walk or phones to work.

And they weren’t shy. One member of a Los Angeles theater guild spent the entire day imploring voters to hit the polls, in three different cases driving people in his own car.

The results reflected that fervor. Despite its huge early lead, Proposition 226 fell to an enemy with gumption and deep wells of money and manpower.

“Voters ultimately understood this wasn’t about paycheck protection,” said Terry of the firefighters union. “This was about power--who has it and who wants it.”