| Utah Vouchers
When his multi-state "65% Deception" ballot measure strategy went nowhere in 2006, Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, turned his attention to Utah, using the state as a pilot program for a multi-state private school vouchers scheme. He and his legislative allies pushed vouchers through the legislature, but before it could become law, public education advocates collected the signatures necessary to put it on the ballot and let Utahns have their say. Even after Byrne and his family spent $3 million personally to defeat the citizen veto, Utahns said "no" to vouchers in a big way on Election Day, severely damaging anti-public education ideologues and their plans to roll out voucher proposals in multiple states in 2008 and beyond. And Byrne's reaction to the vote seems unlikely to win him new allies: he called the referendum a "statewide IQ test" that Utahns "failed."
Oregon Regulatory Takings
Measure 49 was referred to the voters by the legislature to fix the "pay-or-waive" giveaway to big developers known as Measure 37, which voters adopted in 2004. The fix passed with 61% of the vote - a margin that spells continued trouble in future years for the so-called "property rights" movement. Similar controversial attempts to allow takings were defeated in three states in 2006 - CA, WA, and ID (only AZ passed the measure) - and seven additional states attempted pay-or-waive measures. The backers of this movement, Americans for Limited Government and Howie Rich, spent millions of dollars in 2006 on this radical agenda.
Oregon Tobacco Tax for Children's Health Care
BISC research has shown that overwhelming spending against an initially popular measure will practically guarantee its defeat while heavy spending in favor of an initiative does not ensure its passage. Little more needs to be said about Oregon's Healthy Kids proposal, a constitutional amendment which was defeated by over $12 million in Big Tobacco dollars. The tobacco companies' cash represented a four-to-one spending imbalance over the measure's backers, and set a new Oregon record for ballot initiative spending.
Most of the money was spent on slick and effective advertising that questioned why the tax would be embedded in the state Constitution. As the Healthy Kids campaign manager Carol Butler said after the vote, "These are the best marketers in the world. They sell a product that kills you."
New Jersey Bond Issue for Stem Cell Research
A bond issue to borrow $450 million for stem cell research went down to defeat in New Jersey - a vote that surprised many observers. The fiscal commitment involved with the bond differentiated this measure from the 2006 Missouri stem cell initiative, which merely sought the right to research stem cells in the state and passed by a narrow margin (proponents there spent over $30 million and won by 1%). The borrowing aspect may have struck a chord with voters cynical about the accountability of a state legislature tainted by scandal.
However, based on the success of another large bond on the ballot - and the strong passage rate of bond measures generally - it would be naïve to imagine that fiscal responsibility was the only deciding factor on this national social issue. Opponents of the measure included the Catholic Church, NJ Americans for Prosperity and NJ Right to Life.
And in 2008 news...
Update on California Dirty Tricks
Campaign finance reports show that backers of the gimmicky initiative that would change the way California allocates its electoral votes have raised $539,000 of the estimated $2 million they need to qualify the measure.
Nearly all of these funds will go into the signature-gathering effort led by Arno Political Consulting. BISC's new report Abusing Direct Democracy details the long history of allegations against Arno across the country - a history that should provide an incentive for the California Attorney General to monitor Arno's signature gathering practices in the next few weeks. |
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