The campaign to raise income taxes for schools headed by civil rights attorney Molly Munger released a memo on a campaign poll that argues voters would embrace her plan if they knew all the facts. The Munger campaign, which handily filed enough signatures to qualify the tax measure for the ballot, has been fighting the perception that her measure will fail at the polls. The recent Public Policy Institute poll had the initiative at 40% support.
The release stated that when a “balanced” presentation of both the Munger and Gov. Jerry Brown tax measures are presented to the voters, the Munger initiative is supported by 52% of the voters while the governor’s plan gets 30% support.
However, the campaign would not release the poll questions so that independent parties could judge how “balanced” the information was.
The press memo did give an indication how aggressively Munger and her team will pursue the initiative. After acknowledging that the initiative’s title and summary doesn’t garner majority support from the poll respondents, the memo concluded: “It should be noted that in well-funded initiative campaigns that include broadcast TV and extensive voter outreach, voters seldom decide on initiatives solely on title and summary language and frequently make up their minds prior to reading the ballot.”
Munger is signaling that the $6-million she has invested in the campaign is just the beginning. The campaign understands it will take a massive media effort to persuade voters and the memo indicates she is prepared to lead such a fight.
As Sacramento Bee columnist, Dan Walters, has noted a number of times, including yesterday, the Brown campaign is concerned about the media advertising Munger could put forth. If a good portion of the ads attack the governor’s plan as not being adequate for education that could sink Brown’s canoe.
You can see the lines of battle being drawn in the memo. The poll was intended to test voter support between the governor’s tax measure and Munger’s proposal and get a reading how the voters would choose between the two.
There is another choice that voters can make besides either/or – supporting both measures seems highly unlikely but voters could choose to reject them both.
(Joel Fox is the Editor of Fox & Hounds and President of the Small Business Action Committee. Originally posted on HJTA.)
Munger Campaign Poll Highlights Some Tax Choices — But Not All http://t.co/aAfpCwaU
Vote NO! on any state tax increases. Let the schools and their corrupt union sink! Indeed it would be no loss!
The governor is just offering more gimmicks and not nearly enough funding for our students. CA is 47th in the state in what we spend per pupil. CA has the highest student to teacher, student to counselor and student to administrator ratios — in the nation. We’ve lost art, music, drama, counselors, school nurses, librarians, libraries, computer labs, after school programs, athletics. The past four years have been a bloodbath in staff and programs. It’s time to actually fund our students in an amount that can cover what the state has set as their standards. Its time to invest in our students, rather than chip away at our schools, year after year. No more cuts. No more deferrals. No more gimmicks.
The governor is holding our students hostage, so he can pass a tax initiative that will not have a significant positive impact on our schools. The revenue won’t change our per pupil spending. It just pays back a fraction of what schools are already owed. He can’t claim that his initiative is for the kids when it does nothing for our students. But heaven forbid his tax increase doesn’t pass, well then, our schools will see another bloodbath. That’s a pretty cheap trick. Our schools, which get 40% of the budget, will absorb 90% of the cuts if the governor’s initiative doesn’t pass. This is also what is called blackmail.
The PTA/Molly Munger initiative is the only initiative that will start to restore our schools. Many of our school districts are hanging by a thread and the governor’s siphoning away more money last year due to his realignment plan, his initiative that only pays money that has already been taken from schools (maybe) and now his proposed Weighted Student Formula will further damage school districts that are already compromised. PTAs and educational foundations can not fill in the huge gap that has been created. Many districts don’t even have the resources for PTA fundraising and educational foundations — and so the gap widens even further for some -creating varying degrees of inequity, again – in an overall compromised system.
The PTA/Molly Munger, Our Children, Our Future initiative relies on a broad based, sliding scale tax, after deductions. It sends money directly to our schools, NOT the Sacramento black hole! It mandates parent input into how the money is spent and mandates strict accountability. The initiative also makes it a felony to misuse the funds. Got it Gov? ourchildrenourfuture2012.com