Spending on special election campaigns tops $300 million - $304 million

ap on Bakersfield Californian ^ | 2/1/06 | Steve Lawrence - ap

[NormsRevenge]

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Campaign committees battling over the eight propositions on last November's special election ballot spent a record $303.9 million, according to campaign reports filed this week.

All eight of the initiatives, including four promoted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, went down to defeat despite, or perhaps because of, the spending barrage.

"It shows that if you have enough money you certainly can have your issue presented to voters," said Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, a Los Angeles-based campaign think tank. "But it also shows if you have enough money you can defeat almost any issue."

The previous record for spending on ballot measures in a single California election was $253.6 million, set in November 2004, according to figures from the secretary of state's office.

Schwarzenegger contributed $6.5 million of his own money to his losing cause.

His two main campaign committees, the California Recovery Team and Citizens to Save California, spent nearly $56 million altogether to try to persuade voters to approve propositions 74, 75, 76 and 77.

The measures would have extended the probationary period for new teachers, made it tougher for public employee unions to raise campaign money, given the governor new powers to control state spending and taken redistricting duties away from the Legislature.

Also on the ballot were measures that would have required parental notification or a judge's waiver before a minor could get an abortion, attempted to lower the cost of prescription drugs for low-income Californians and reinstate some controls on the state's electricity market.

Schwarzenegger was heavily supported by his business allies, but the public employees and Democrats fighting his proposals spent nearly $133 million in opposition.

Stern said the governor might have had better luck if he had waited to put his proposals on either the June or November ballots this year instead of calling a special election. Voters, he said, were turned off by the idea of spending millions to hold the election.

But Marty Wilson, Schwarzenegger's chief campaign fundraiser, refused to second guess the decision to have a special election.

"The results speak for themselves," he said. "We live with those and we just have to move on. It's not good use of our time to sit here and think, 'God, if we'd only done this or done that.' It doesn't gain you anything."

While the ballot propositions were losers political consultants and the state's broadcast industries were winners.

The campaigns spent nearly $16 million on political consultants and another $105 million on radio and television ads.

Drug companies spent $83.6 million to defeat Proposition 79, which would have penalized pharmaceutical companies that failed to offer discounts to uninsured, lower-income Californians. Proposition 78, a voluntary discount measure touted by the companies as an alternative to Proposition 79, also failed.

The California Nurses Association, which gave more than $240,000 in contributions to oppose most of the measure on the ballot, said the record spending on the special election campaigns demonstrated the need for tougher contribution controls.

"At a time when millions of our fellow Californians are unable to afford health coverage or meet other basic needs, this binge spending on ballot measures is disgraceful," said Rose Ann DeMoro, the association's executive director.

But Stern said court rulings allowing unlimited contributions to ballot measure campaigns would prevent attempts to cap donations.

[Amerigomag]

1/3 of a billon dollars pi$$ed away for what?

Political glory. Looser pays. No problem. It's tax payer money.

[Domangart]

TV add time. No time for those NRDC adds paid for by us the poor taxpayers.