Activists Try to Knock Out Ballot Propositions

Things didn’t start off great for the trio of volunteers assigned Saturday to a precinct in Lawndale on the first day of a statewide, union-driven, door-to-door campaign to defeat propositions backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or his political allies.

No one was home at the first house they tried, and at the second there was an angry man to deal with. But at the third, in a stucco triplex, a voice from behind a steel mesh door said just what they hoped to hear as they urged a vote against Propositions 74, 75 and 76.

“That’s against Schwarzenegger?” the voice wanted to know.

“That’s right,” said one of the volunteers.

“No problem.”

The volunteers -- Mimi Kennedy, 57, Steven Chelski, 41, and Daniel Moran, 42 -- visibly relaxed and made a note that someone should follow up with Patricia Rodriguez, the woman behind the door, to encourage her to make her voice heard in the special election Nov. 8.

Kennedy is an activist and actress best known for her role as Dharma’s mother on the television show “Dharma and Greg.” Chelski is a personal injury lawyer, and Moran is a schoolteacher. The three were among hundreds of volunteers statewide who took to the streets Saturday armed with scripts about why the propositions would be bad and lists of certain people who were believed to have voted infrequently in the past and needed to be “persuaded and motivated” this time.

Proposition 74 would make it easier to fire teachers, 75 would restrict the ability of public employee unions to raise campaign funds from members, and 76 would impose limits on state spending while shifting more budgetary power from the Legislature to the governor. Schwarzenegger has not endorsed or opposed Proposition 75.

Moran, the teacher, said he was most concerned about what he sees as Proposition 74’s potential to stifle teacher activists who could be fired under false pretenses. Kennedy and Chelski are married to teachers.

Teachers unions and public employee unions representing firefighters, police officers and nurses have taken lead roles in the Alliance for a Better California, which is coordinating the campaign.

In their precinct of modest, mostly stucco homes, the three volunteers encountered Dina Cleveland, a 19-year-old Cal State Los Angeles student who was concerned about further spending cutbacks by a state government that she said could not afford to give the salutatorian of her high school graduating class enough financial aid to attend a four-year college.

The volunteers also happened to meet Carlos Iraheta, who was standing in his tidy front yard. Iraheta, a union member who unloads United Airlines planes, wasn’t on their list but said he had experience with unions being pushed around and was no supporter of a proposition that would require unions to ask members for permission to use dues to wage political battles. Since Sept. 11, Iraheta said, he has had to accept three pay cuts.

Chelski, the lawyer, read to him from a script that included references to other initiatives the campaign opposed, including Proposition 77, which is backed by the governor and would no longer allow lawmakers to draw their own legislative districts.

Kennedy, the actress, ad libbed: “Just vote no on all of them,” she advised.

Iraheta did not need much prompting. “I will,” he said.

Chelski also discussed two initiatives the campaign is supporting -- Proposition 79, one of two measures purported to make prescription drugs less costly, and Proposition 80, which would partly roll back electricity deregulation.