Dear Readers:
This is the time of year in which I start to get a lot of calls from reporters who want to do stories about "what is really going on in initiative politics". Some have done great work. In particular I want to offer congratulations to David Wright at KRON-TV, Vlae Kershner, Kenneth Howe and John Wildermuth at the San Francisco Chronicle, and Tracy Seipel at the San Jose Mercury (and their editors) each of whom have produced superb and lengthy pieces this week on the initiative process. Coverage like this is a service to all of us.
Recently, I've been thinking about an undercurrent in the 1998 initiative season, the arrival of wealthy individuals as initiative players. I thought of this especially this morning when I debated Ron Unz before a breakfast meeting of Silicon Valley executives. It is a story I have mentioned to reporters for several weeks and I finally decided that I'd write it myself. As always, enjoy it, your feedback is welcome, and please pass it along to others who might be interested.
Finally, thank you to everyone who had such kind things to say about my last piece on returning to Nicaragua.
Jim Shultz
The Democracy Center
In my twenties I briefly became a fan of the novels (though not the political philosophy) of Ayn Rand. My favorite was "Atlas Shrugged" a five-inch-thick tale about how the world's most wealthy and powerful citizens finally got tired of carrying "the burden" of dealing with everyone else and one day vanished, to live in a secret society of other rich and powerful people. Hence the image of Atlas, the giant who carried the world on his shoulders, shrugging and quitting the job.
As the 1998 election reaches full steam in California I've noticed a different story unfolding - "Atlas Goes Into Politics". Rich people, everywhere rich people. More than moneyed special interest groups, it is moneyed individuals who are quickly becoming the key players in state politics.
EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE ROSS PEROT
First there are the candidates. In the Democratic primary for Governor two of the three leading candidates, Al Checchi and Jane Harman, are both multi-millionaires and are both self-financing their campaigns. In Checchi's case he actually gains or loses more money in an average day on the stock market than he is spending in his campaign for governor. On the GOP side another multi-millionaire, car alarm mogul Darryl Issa, is a major contender for the Republican Senate nomination, coming out of no where with a tide of self-financed TV ads.
This is nothing new. Michael Huffington bought himself the GOP nomination for Senate in 1994 and came within a whisker of defeating Diane Feinstein (another candidate with substantial self-financing) for re-election. The trend is a marriage of two things. The first is the example of Ross Perot and how a little media savvy and a lot of personal cash can let one person turn politics on its head. The second is the insistence by the U.S. Supreme Court that unlimited spending by candidates on their own campaigns is a form of free speech protected by the first amendment.
A TALE OF TWO SILICON VALLEY MILLIONAIRES
The infusion of personal cash into candidate elections was the first wave of "Atlas Goes into Politics". This year a new wave has hit with full force - the entry of wealthy individuals as dominant players in the California initiative process. There are some precedents for this. In 1990 millionaire Hal Arbit put his personal fortune to work to qualify the "Forests Forever" initiative (Proposition 130 which lost at the polls). He explained to a reporter at the time, "I have the choice of buying a $2 million painting and looking at it on the wall or I could spend $2 million and have a chance of saving the last 5% of California redwood forests."
Now fast forward to 1998 where there at least three examples of millionaire-launched initiatives. One is sponsored by an heir to the Longs Drug store chain, a November measure to outlaw the killing of horses for eating. But more interesting is the tale of two young Silicon Valley millionaires and their two very different approaches to initiative politics.
Reed Hastings and Ron Unz, are both in their mid-thirties, are both self-made hi-tech entrepreneurs, and each of them decided to put their large disposable incomes to work on a pet issue related to reforming California's public schools. For Hastings the cause was expanding the number of charter schools in California, a program which allows teachers and parents to design their own educational approach, unhooked from much of California's education code. For Ron Unz the cause was dismantling bilingual education.
Both wrote initiatives that reflected their views on the issues, both hired the same signature gathering firm to put paid petitioners on the street, both readied a campaign to take to California voters. There the similarities end. Hastings said to state lawmakers, in essence - I have the signatures I need to get on the ballot, this is what I think is good reform, reasonable people can disagree, if we can agree to a solid compromise and enact it into law I'll drop my initiative. A few weeks ago lawmakers approved a compromise and Hastings, in an unprecedented move, never filed his signatures.
Unz, on the other hand, took a different approach. He told lawmakers, in essence, my initiative is the reform I want, it is the only reform I want, and nothing the Legislature might approve would dissuade me from continuing my campaign. Going further, Unz actively advocated against a bipartisan bilingual compromise as it moved through the Legislature and succeeded in getting Governor Wilson to veto it. Certainly, the parties involved in bilingual education were more entrenched than those on charter schools, in a debate that became even more polarized by Unz's extreme approach and hot rhetoric. But what would have happened if Unz had done as Hastings did? What would have happened if, last summer, Unz had offered to hold back his completed petitions in exchange for a reasonable legislative compromise? I think a deal could have been worked out, one much less extreme and far more workable than Proposition 227.
SO WHAT HAPPENS IF I WIN TONIGHT'S LOTTO?
When Hal Arbit put up millions to protect the Redwoods I thought he was a hero. When Ron Unz put up big bucks to dismantle bilingual education I told reporters that the political system was for sale. Sometimes in politics it is hard to separate what you believe are fair rules for the "process" versus the temptation to bend that process in the service of the political issues you care about. Hey, what if I win $25 million in tonight's super lotto (keep your fingers crossed)? Would I be tempted to do a little initiative monkey business of my own - maybe (after, of course, buying my two kids a lifetime pass to Disneyland).
So what is right and wrong in terms of principle. On the whole I think we would be a lot better off if people, of any political bent, couldn't spend without limit on initiative campaigns. But that isn't about to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, I am intrigued by the example of Reed Hastings. He seemed to follow another important principle about ballot initiatives - that they are much more valuable as a way to kick the regular lawmaking process in the butt than as a device for putting laws on the books. In legislative lawmaking the process finds the warts on proposals and fixes them. In initiative campaigns, like Mr. Unz's, those warts (and there are plenty in 227) get glossed over by rhetoric.
Legislative lawmaking nudges the parties toward compromise.
Initiatives, in the end (from the left or the right), are
about "my way and my way only." Which one do you think makes
for better law? In the end it may be that what separates
these two wealthy initiative moguls is not so much strategy
but arrogance and the lack of it. And when you decide to
become a political savior and have the checking account
to go it alone, arrogance is a dangerous thing.
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