The cops in Contra Costa County were shocked at the number of those who turned out to protest a fund raiser for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The organizers of the event expected maybe fifty folks at the most. Instead nearly 500 showed up. The protesters were mainly nurses, firefighters, teachers and students who have had enough of the gov’s policies and plans to last a life time.
"No more dirty tricks, no more 76," they hollered in protest alluding to the Nov. 8 ballot measure Proposition 76. This measure would devastate public schools and other vital services, cutting school funding by over $4 billion every year - $600 per student, leading to more overcrowded classrooms, teacher layoffs, and fewer textbooks and classroom materials. It also cuts funding for cities and counties, cutting police and firefighters, as well as local health care that protects children and the elderly. This initiative would also cap spending on voter-approved programs like the early childhood programs that are already paid for with the tobacco tax. Under this initiative, the Governor could declare a “fiscal emergency” and cut funding for vital services like education, health care, fire and police without approval from anyone else.
A Contra Costa County firefighter, who gave only his first name, Dominic, said another Schwarzenegger plan will "mess with" firefighters' retirement benefits. "Our lives are shorter, so our retirement is important to us," he said.
And he is absolutely correct.
A recent proposal (ACA 23) of the governor contains a number of dangerous provisions, the more egregious it:
Constitutionally outlaws defined benefit (DB) retirement plans for all state and local firefighters effective 7.1.07 in favor of risky defined contribution (DC) and hybrid retirement schemes;
Eliminates specific provisions that otherwise provide for secured, defined death benefits for the survivors of firefighters killed in the line of duty;
Constitutionally increases the normal retirement age for firefighters from age 50 to age 55;
Constitutionally takes away retiree health care for those firefighters who have not yet reached age 55; and
Constitutionally eliminates the single-highest year standard in favor of a 36-month average when calculating a firefighter’s final compensation for retirement purposes.
The California Professional Firefighters (CPF) says, “Philosophically, ACA 23 is simply mean-spirited. The measure does nothing more than inappropriately and unfairly attack the retirement security of those fire service professionals who have made protecting the public their life’s work; putting their lives on the line to keep Californians safe each and every time the alarm bell rings."
The protest yesterday occurred outside the Lafayette, California home of former Dreyers Ice Cream president Rick Cronk and his wife, Janet. The protest was organized by the Alliance for a Better California (ABC).
Another proposition targeted by the protesters was #75 (Should public employee unions be required to obtain annual written consent from each member in order to use a portion of that member's dues for political activity?). ABC says, “Proposition 75 is a deceptive measure put on the ballot by the big corporations and out of state billionaires who support Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's destructive agenda for California. It unfairly targets teachers, nurses, firefighters, police and other public employees with restrictions that don’t apply to other groups or corporations, which regularly spend shareholder money on politics without permission. Prop. 75 is designed to reduce our ability to respond when politicians would harm education, health care and public safety, effectively clearing the opposition to the Governor’s education and health care cuts.”
In fact, according to ABC, last spring, the governor’s political operation urged Lewis Uhler, a longtime corporate advocate, to lead the initiative. Uhler started a committee of the governor’s wealthy and corporate donors called “Coalition for Employee Rights.” In June, Uhler abandoned that committee name, but took the donors and started “Californians for Paycheck Protection.” Last week, in his most blatant attempt to deceive voters, he created his third alias, changing the name of “Californians for Paycheck Protection” to “Teacher, Firefighters and Law Enforcement for Paycheck Protection,” with its own web site and radio ad campaign.
“These guys are not union members, they’re millionaires,” said Lorena Ornelas, RN from Pomona. “Their ads say public employees like me paid for Prop. 75. But if you read the fine print, you’ll discover it’s actually funded by people like Frank Baxter and Robin Arkley – two of the biggest millionaire donors to Governor Schwarzenegger and President Bush.”
Baxter, founder of the right-wing fringe group Club for Growth and Arkley are the two largest contributors to the new committee. The two are featured with other millionaire, corporate special interests on the new site Millionaires for Prop 75.
“Classroom teachers oppose Prop. 75 because its real agenda is to make it harder for us to speak out for our students and schools,” said Lisa Dickason, a fifth grade teacher in Long Beach. “The truth is, the governor’s corporate pals are writing big checks to support Prop. 75 to increase the amount of power they already have over our government and push their own agenda – an agenda that hurts public schools and takes California in the wrong direction.”
According the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, corporations currently outspend unions by a margin of 24-1. Uhler told The Sacramento Bee Prop. 75, “will be a boon to our control over governmental activities in our state.’
The Contra Costa Times notes Schwarzenegger's approval rating with Californians fell to an all-time low of 33 percent, down 61 percent from a year earlier and unchanged since he announced his re-election bid two weeks ago, according to a poll released today by the Public Policy Institute of California. All three ballot measures he's backing lost support since a similar survey in August.
``People are very concerned about the direction of the economy, rising gasoline prices and the ability of the government to respond to the terrible things that are happening around us, such as natural disasters,'' Mark Baldassare, the pollster for the San Francisco-based institute, said in a telephone interview. ``They're looking to this special election and they really can't draw a connection between what concerns them the most and what seems to be the purpose and the emphasis of the special election.''
By the way, the Gov. himself failed to show for the fund raiser. Sources: Contra Costa Times, Bloomberg, Argus (SF Bay Area), CPF, Alliance for a Better California
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