California Voters Shoot Down Schwarzenegger’s Initiatives

All 8 statewide initiatives on the ballot in California for the Nov. 8 election were voted down by an electorate frustrated by Gov. Schwarzenegger’s close ties to right wing special interest groups and his inability to work with the democratically elected legislature.

The margin was greatest for the “Cut School Funding Act,” Prop 76 - a 35.52% difference between the ‘no’ votes and the ‘yes’ votes. Prop 76 was the centerpiece of the governor’s “reform” agenda. The fact that he campaign hardest on it and that fact that it also went down the hardest is telling.

The election results are partly a repudiation of Schwarzenegger himself. He moved away from the bipartisan governance that marked his first year in office and turned sharply to the right – attacking pensions, borrowing money from education and not repaying our schools, mocking unions and campaigning for President Bush.

By sidestepping the democratically elected legislature, instead of working with them to overcome California’s challenges, the governor alienated many voters who expected him to be a different kind of governor. Californians were hopeful that he would be able to govern in a bipartisan and moderate fashion. When he called for an $80 million special election in a time when many schools do not even have enough books for their students, he put the agenda of a few special interests ahead of education, healthcare and a host of other issues.

However, to credit Schwarzenegger alone for the failure of his bad ‘reform’ package is to ignore the absolutely irreplaceable work done by tens of thousands of union, community and student activists who gave up their evenings and weekends to defeat his special interest agenda.

On election day alone, more than 15,000 volunteers statewide came out to walk precincts and man phone banks for an unprecedented GOTV effort. While the governor’s own missteps may have created the environment for victory, it was only because of the hard work of the campaign heroes who volunteered in the weeks and months leading up the election that we were able to claim victory on Tuesday night.

As the governor discovered, elections are not won by special interest money, but by committed individuals working together and by the long, often thankless work of knocking on doors and calling voters.

In the end, labor’s victory on Nov. 8 was not due to the unprecedented amounts of money spent, to neither Schwarzenegger’s star power nor his declining popularity, but to the volunteers and voters who rejected the attacks on working families in favor of standing up for schools, firefighters, teachers, and nurses.