Their Case Is Truly Textbook

The idea may be more appealing to college students than spring break in Mexico: no taxes on textbooks.

Orange Coast College student Ryan Simpkins heard about the concept from the dean of students at the Costa Mesa community college. “It got my mind spinning,” he said.

Toby Sexton had never heard of the idea until he attended a leadership conference last year at Texas A&M.; He liked it so much that he made it a plank in his winning campaign for Cal State Long Beach student body president.

When Simpkins called Sexton late last summer to enlist his support, he found he was talking to the converted. A campaign was born. “I was ecstatic,” Simpkins said. “It meant we had all these extra people working on it.”

Since then, the two college students have followed a methodical strategy, forged a coalition with other schools, lobbied for faculty support and talked to members of the state Legislature. Their efforts took a major step forward last week when state Assembly members Ken Maddox (R-Garden Grove) and Denise Ducheny (D-San Diego) said they will introduce bills based on the recommendations of Simpkins and Sexton.

“I’m trying to liberate learning from the impediment of taxes,” said Maddox, a graduate student in management at National University in Costa Mesa.

Several states have passed similar bills, Simpkins and Sexton said, including New York, Oklahoma and Virginia, but the campaign has failed in Texas, Connecticut and Illinois.

A 1998 study by the California Department of Equalization found that the state earned $34.5 million from taxes on textbooks out of total sales tax revenues of more than $28 billion.

At 0.12%, it is a figure so low that a lobbyist told Simpkins it was “budget dust.”

Even with support from Maddox and Ducheny, who is chairwoman of the Assembly Budget Committee, there is no guarantee the bill will pass. A similar law died in an Assembly committee last year. Still, Simpkins and Sexton remain confident that the election of Gov. Gray Davis has spawned a more sympathetic atmosphere for education.

“The environment in the capital is primed to get it passed,” Simpkins said. “The key is student support. Students are doing all the work, and it is student-spawned. That’s the greatest thing going for us.”

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Simpkins, 22, is the business manager of the Associated Students at Orange Coast. Despite a position that seems made for an aspiring accountant or businessman, he wants to be a filmmaker or actor.

Neither he nor Sexton say they want to get involved in politics.

Sexton, 24, carries a 2-inch-thick notebook titled “Sales Tax Exemptions for Textbooks.” Lest you think he’s a policy wonk, the other parts of his presidential platform called for booking major rock concerts at Cal State Long Beach--he has dyed his sandy blond hair platinum as a publicity stunt for the recent Smash Mouth concert on campus--and bringing back intercollegiate football. Two autographed footballs from the late coach George Allen decorate his office.

As the first member of his family to go to college, Sexton wanted to be a cop after graduating from Marina High in Huntington Beach but is making plans for law school next year.

The proposal would apply to texts sold on campus and by other businesses whose main purpose is to sell the books to college students, which would usually mean stores near campus.

To gain the tax waiver, a student would be required to present a college ID.

To head off opposition, the proposal asks the state to come up with about $11 million that Simpkins and Sexton say the counties stand to lose in sales tax revenue. Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Assn., said the students should offer a real substitute to make up for that county money instead of taking it from the state’s general fund. He suggested some areas where no sales tax is charged, such as admissions to movies and sporting events, limousine rentals or 976 telephone calls.

Dave Holcomb, director of student auxiliary services at Orange Coast and president-elect of the National Assn. of College Stores, said the bill also would help them compete with Internet booksellers, who don’t pay sales tax. “We do see this as a way to even the playing field,” he said.

A sales-tax exemption for textbooks would seem to have a ready-made constituency, considering the 2.2 million college students across the state. Books can be a substantial chunk of the cost of education. While full-time tuition at a community college costs about $150, books add $300 more, said Jeffrey Dimsdale, Orange Coast’s dean of students.

“This touches not just students, but the parents who pay and the teachers who select the books,” Sexton said. “It touches nearly every family across the state.”

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In June, Sexton took his idea to the California State Students Assn., made up of the student body presidents of the state universities, but the group didn’t pay much attention.

It made him rethink his plans and allowed him to unite with Simpkins. “When we fully got our forces together, that’s when things started to happen,” Sexton said.

Simpkins and Sexton have brought in student leaders from UCLA and USC, giving them representation from all segments of higher education in the state--community colleges, a University of California campus, a Cal State campus and a private university--when they meet every two or three weeks.

“Everyone we’ve been in touch with has been heavily in support of it,” said Adam Levine, a USC senior from Costa Mesa, who has joined the effort.

They have received the support of the California Assn. of College Stores and the state community college’s Academic Senate.

In October, they sent letters to the presidents of the state’s 107 community colleges and their student body leaders seeking their support.

Last month, they began looking for legislators to author their bill.

When the Legislature returns in January, Sexton and Simpkins expect to have regular lobbying days on which groups of students head to Sacramento to persuade legislators to support their effort.

‘Once they introduce the bill, the students aren’t going to go away,’ Simpkins said.