Nov. 7 is Election Day. Most of you are resting comfortably, assured that Gov. Schwarzenegger will be reelected and that the reforms of SB 899 (Poochigian) will be preserved for at least another five years. As you decide how and when to vote, take note of a little-publicized initiative, one sounding of good government and yet one that holds the key to the complete, irreversible, total loss of political power of the business community and the potential to completely undo all the reform we’ve worked so hard to put in place.
It is Proposition 89, the so-called “clean elections” initiative that is so egregious, so draconian, so palpably unfair, that both the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle have editorialized against it.
The “clean election” aspect of this initiative is taken from the public financing of elections similar to laws enacted in states as diverse as Arizona and Maine. Funded by a $200 million tax on businesses, Proposition 89 sets strict limits on donations to campaigns for elective office.
But that is not the only aspect of this proposition that has caused many to sound alarms. It is restrictions on independent expenditures and initiatives uniquely applied to corporations that have created a sense of outrage even among those who could hardly be considered pro-business in their outlook.
Proposition 89 basically takes the initiative process out of the hands of corporations, and many nonprofits, and gives it almost exclusively to labor unions and trial lawyers. It is a sleight of hand that is possibly the most disingenuous abuse of the initiative process that has occurred in modern times.
Sponsored by the California Nurses Association, among other groups, Proposition 89 is essentially payback for the 2005 failed initiatives of Gov. Schwarzenegger. The CNA would serve its members, and California, better if it would use its resources to address fundamental problems in our health care delivery system rather than try to hijack the initiative process so that it can unilaterally dictate policy by stifling the ability of businesses to raise their voices in opposition to ballot measures. But this is not just about nurses.
Over the past two administrations, workers’ compensation legislation has been dictated by those who have leverage. First it was the unions. Then, after the recall, leverage shifted to Gov. Schwarzenegger and the business community. Now, an uneasy stasis has been created by two relatively equal forces, each capable of stymieing the other. The legislature is not of a persuasion to accommodate the governor, and the governor is not interested in reversing reforms he signed into law more than two years ago. The wild card in this standoff, as is the case with all legislation, is the initiative process. To date, the adage in Sacramento is that workers’ compensation cannot be done by initiative. The governor bluffed and the legislature blinked in 2004. Late last year, three initiatives were filed that would have not only unwound SB 899 but would have returned some aspects of the law back to the time before workers’ compensation. Democratic leadership put a stop to that even before any effort to collect signatures.
The reason that workers’ compensation isn’t done by initiative is twofold. One is that it is generally considered too complicated to do by initiative. The second is that this is one area where employers will spend whatever it takes to enact or defeat such a measure. Business and labor realize that and, consequently, the workers’ compensation battle is waged within the halls of the Capitol. Proposition 89 changes all that.
Imagine an initiative that restores worker choice of physician and the treating physician presumption. It is a relatively small drafting project – only two sections of the Labor Code need to be changed. So much for complexity. The idea of employee choice of physician still polls very well, so it would be an uphill climb to defeat such a change to SB 899. But that is the dynamic even before Proposition 89. Were this initiative to pass and be upheld by the courts, corporations would be limited to a maximum of $10,000 to contribute to the defeat of such a measure.
Although $10,000 may sound like a lot of money, consider that for one ballot measure this year, Proposition 87, the oil tax initiative, proponents and opponents will spend more than $100 million. Imagine that, and you can grasp just how draconian Proposition 89 is. Organizations such as certain labor unions and the California Applicants’ Attorneys Association would suffer no such limitation.
The fundamental purpose of Proposition 89 is to prevent the business community from funding independent expenditures or ballot measures. The limitations on contributions to political parties and to individual candidates will result in perennially underfunded Republican candidates and give the pen for the initiative process to those who are exempt from its restrictions. This doesn’t put an end to the “corrosive power of special interest money,” as the Times calls it; it cuts off only one source.