Lessons Learned, Bond Backers to Try Again

It makes perfect sense for school advocates to charge right back in November with another ballot measure like Proposition 26. But not just like Prop. 26. And not with the same sales pitch to voters.

So the “new and improved” version will seek to reduce the vote requirement for local school bonds from a two-thirds majority to 55%. That’s still a super majority, not the simple majority 50% proposed in Prop. 26. And it’s a good-faith compromise voters may accept.

“It’s not saying, ‘OK, you dummies, you didn’t get it right the first time; here’s another chance,”’ notes a strategist.

This time, Gov. Gray Davis and his political team--headed by consultant Garry South--will mastermind the campaign, not the California Teachers Assn. And they’ll address head-on the nagging issues that spooked swing voters in the March 7 primary: the prospect of property tax increases and the wasteful spending of the L.A. school district, particularly at the Belmont Learning Complex.

Prop. 26 lost by a narrow, 2.4% margin. It even lost by a sliver in L.A. County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1.

“It’s bruising to spend $23 million and lose,” notes Silicon Valley entrepreneur Reed Hastings, who dumped $3.5 million of his own money into the campaign.

Isn’t it painful, I ask, to think about climbing back in the ring and fighting again? “Giving up is more painful,” he replies.

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Here’s why it makes sense to take another run at the voters so soon, even if the move might seem a mite masochistic and/or insolent:

* This will be a different electorate. November electorates always are less conservative than primary electorates.

Consider this data from the Times Poll: If there had been the same racial, gender and party mix in the March primary as there was in the 1998 general election, the Prop. 26 result would have been reversed. It would have passed by 2.4%.

Moreover, analysts for the Assembly Republican Caucus found that if the ethnic mix in the recent primary had been the same as it was in the 1998 primary--when Latinos and blacks composed 26% of the electorate, rather than just 14%--Prop. 26 would have passed by four points.

* By all indications, this is shaping up as a good Democratic year, and thus a good year for left-leaning ballot props.

* A booming economy should leave voters feeling content and generous.

* Therefore, a historic window of opportunity remains open for tossing out a century-old two-thirds vote requirement that has led to overcrowded classrooms and dilapidated schools. That window may never be open as wide again.

But, concedes Hastings, “We learned a lot in the Prop. 26 campaign.”

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They learned it was futile--actually, fatal--to try to duck the tax and Belmont issues.

This time, says Burt McChesney, head of a business coalition that promotes education improvement, “we need to document how urgent the school construction need is and how relatively low the cost is.” Only 2.5% of the property tax now is spent on school bonds, he says, and even if that rose by 50%, it still wouldn’t boost tax bills much.

“And we need to directly confront Belmont,” McChesney adds. The ballot prop requires two annual audits that would have stopped the school district from wasting $200 million on an abandoned oil field, he insists.

Backers also learned they need a broader, more bipartisan campaign team.

Business-oriented Goddard-Claussen, a favorite firm of the prop’s principal financiers--Reed Hastings and Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr--will create the TV commercials. Burson-Marsteller--which lists South among its consultants--will spin the news media. Longtime GOP strategist Steven Merksamer’s law firm will act as campaign treasurer.

Out is the Prop. 26 campaign manager, Gale Kaufman, who presumably will direct the CTA’s opposition to an expected school voucher initiative. Out also is the CTA, prime sponsor of Prop. 26.

“Fighting vouchers is the main thing for us,” says CTA President Wayne Johnson. “Everything else is secondary.”

The vital player is the governor, who was accused by the CTA of sitting out Prop. 26. This time, Davis will actively campaign and lend his team of South, pollster Paul Maslin and ad creator David Doak. Davis’ price was the 55% vote.

“The governor felt very strongly that we couldn’t just go back and slap the voters in the face with the same thing,” South says.

Officially, the gurus still are deciding whether enough money can be raised and there’s still time to collect 1 million signatures by mid-May. But $7 million already has been donated for the signature-gathering. And, unofficially, this campaign is rolling.