The Battle for California

In the battle for California, the sneaky bastards are getting the upper hand. For now. . .

The powerful teachers union never ceases to amaze by spouting inflammatory rhetoric that doesn’t add up. What’s the latest? Following a PPIC poll where 64 percent of Californians said they support linking teacher pay to performance, the teachers union is making a desperate attempt to change the debate by using scare tactics to falsely attack the merit pay initiative.

The facts are clear: The initiative gives school districts more authority to dismiss an employee under all of those reasons specified in current law, plus address performance issues. Currently, a school district can dismiss an employee based on a variety of grounds, including immoral or unprofessional conduct, dishonesty, unsatisfactory performance, conviction of a felony, etc. The initiative does not weaken this authority. It simply gives school districts the ability to evaluate and reward outstanding performance.

Clearly, Californians support this philosophy. However, when faced with the facts, the teachers union stoops to an all-time low by falsely attacking a common-sense proposal that the public supports.

And it’s no wonder they’ve been able to blanket the airwaves with their attacks. Public employee union bosses spent a staggering $16 million over the first three months of the year to run a special interest focused campaign and flood the airwaves with political ads attacking Gov. Schwarzenegger’s reform agenda.

The eleven public employee unions, who make-up the inappropriately named “Alliance for a Better CA” (ABC), plus the California Nurses Association reported that combined they received $7.3 million in contributions between January 1 to March 31, 2005. Additionally, the reports state that under “Other payments to influence” ABC members spent some $8 million to conduct their deceptive media war.

But the money doesn’t stop there. This week, the California Teachers Association, the California Council of State Service Employees and California School Employees Association transferred $1 million to ABC, presumably to cover the cost of their latest attack ad in which they make misleading claims about the budget reform initiative.

Public employee union bosses are spending millions of dollars fighting against common sense reforms to maintain the status quo in Sacramento at the cost of California taxpayers and working families.