Currently teachers spend about $75 bucks a month for their CTA dues, (Calif. Teacher’s Assoc.) The 325,000 members generally walk lock-step with whatever the union does, but lately more and more teachers are asking hard questions about how the CTA is spending their dues. Some didn’t like the union spending tens of millions to defeat Props 74 and 75, but when the union assessed them another $180, without a vote, a class action lawsuit followed!
As to the election the CTA is fighting, union money will likely defeat all propositions. “He who spends the most on elections… wins!” It’s that simple and that ugly. The California FPPC says you have a 93% chance of winning an election if you can outspend your opposition. That makes issues secondary to the money.
Money is buying votes here and it’s easy, we’ve not had any meaningful campaign finance reform in over 40 years. Any attempt to clean it up gets crushed by the special interests, consequently, California is a wide-open state for corrupt election practices. Gray Davis was the mere tip of the ice berg…we needed to dump about 200 more lousy polticians who benefit from these powerful special interests, to make any sort of meaningful gains.
Voters are manipulated, deceived and pursuaded by slick campaign ads running day and night for weeks before the election! These election ads are not restrained by the truth in advertising laws and it’s so obvious if you ever stop to examine them closely. Look at who is sponsoring them and you’ll get closer to the truth. I just heard a California Prison Guard Union ad on the radio saying, “Say NO to the powerful deep pockets, those special interests, those…” Huh? They are the special interests! They are asking you to vote NO and that is supporting the big money and special interest groups.
How we will ever turn this pathetic situation around is probably the single greatest challenge to the voters of this state. Every attempt gets crushed (last time it was Prop 208. Popular with voters, but it was sued to death.) The fat cats, like the big unions, who feed off this corruption seem to have all the power they need to keep it “status quo”.