Three CA Education Revenue Initiatives for November, 2012? A Comparison, Because Voters Will Probably Only Support One
I recently had the opportunity to hear Molly Munger describe in detail to the California PTA how her proposed ballot initiative, Our Children, Our Future, would produce revenue to pay for K-12 public education.
Governor Brown‘s Schools and Local Public Safety Act ballot initiative proposal has also been public for some time, as has the Courage Campaign‘s proposed ballot initiative (pdf). All three are in the process of collecting signatures to be certified by the California Secretary of State to appear on the November 6, 2012 ballot.
With the process still fluid enough to influence, yet with much at stake and a great deal of political brinksmanship and back channel horse-trading still to take place, I’d like to open up the discussion of the merits of the three possible initiatives now because I feel we Californians are being asked to thread the needle.No one initiative seems to contain the best way of funding public schools and addressing a budget deficit left over from the Schwarzenegger administration of about $9.2 billion. Instead, each initiative has its strengths and weaknesses. If all three make it to the ballot, there’ll be chaos, and there are mutual exclusivity clauses that complicate voting for all three.
Moreover, there are currently bills under consideration in the California Assembly and Senate that would greatly
