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Proposition 32 could do more harm than good

California focus

Businesses are shying away from backing Proposition 32, the latest Republican revival of the so-called “paycheck protection” plan for emasculating the political efforts of all labor unions.

  This proposition would ban contributions from unions and corporations directly to candidates, but leaves them free to put as much as they like into so-called Super Political Action committees that fund supposedly “independent” ads for candidates and causes. More importantly, it forbids unions from using their members’ dues for political purposes for more than one year after members give their permission.

  There are no similar protections for corporate shareholders, many of whom have no way even to know what companies are giving political cash or how much, since many contributions to independent expenditure committees no longer have to be reported.

  This notion has lost twice before, in 1996 and 2005, both times by about a 53-47 percent margin, indicating sentiment on the issue may not change much. But maybe this time, with public employee unions at a popularity low, it will. That, at least, is what Charlie Munger, Jr. hopes.

  Munger, the son of the eponymous billionaire investor and Warren Buffett partner, and the brother of civil rights attorney and activist Molly Munger (the force behind this fall’s Proposition 38 tax-for-schools initiative), has put tens of millions of dollars given him by his father into political causes over the last decade.

  A physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator complex, he was one of the main funders of the 2008 Proposition 11, which took legislative redistricting out of the hands of legislators. He gave $12.16 million to the 2010 initiative that added congressional redistricting to the tasks of the Citizens Redistricting Commission. He spent $700,000 on primary races last spring, aiming to help moderates running against hardline Republicans.

  But his efforts on behalf of Proposition 32 amount to an effort to make the political world safe for corporations and billionaires like himself (even those who did not inherit, but earned their money).

  For a clue about who might benefit, it’s only necessary to look at the list of donors to this measure. Besides Munger, the list includes banking heir Howard Ahmanson, producer Jerry Perenchio, venture capitalist William Draper and the Lincoln Club of Orange County. This is the third time around for the Lincoln Club on paycheck protection, which began as that club’s brainchild.

  Basically, the corporate tycoons and CEOs and wealthy heirs are in this to deprive the lowliest of workers of their political voice. Think DMV clerks, building janitors, restaurant dishwashers. If firefighters and police also lose their voice, that’s alright with these folks, too. And that might actually be OK, if the voices of big employers were similarly controlled by letting shareholders veto corporate political expenditures in proportion to the shares they hold either directly or indirectly via pension systems and mutual funds.

  A measure that included limits on both those interests would be a fair way to take at least some special interest money out of politics. But a measure dealing with only one side of the political equation is unbalanced, allowing business interests to advertise their arguments – true and false – as much as they like with only a limited response from labor unions, which often disagree with them.

  Setting up this kind of one-sided political climate could endanger everything from overtime pay to mandatory breaks and sick leave. In the pre-union America of the 19th century and early 20th century, none of those things were provided by the vast majority of employers.

  That’s why Proposition 32 has sometimes been labeled as a sucker punch against workers.

  What’s in this for Munger? A former member of the state’s Curriculum Commission, he became disenchanted with state legislators and what he’s told some reporters are their inept education bills. Legislators, mostly Democrats, are too much swayed by the labor unions that often fund their campaigns, he plainly believes.

  So he’s done everything he could to remove their job security, via the new redistricting system. That didn’t work, as it appears likely union-backed Democrats this fall will end up with legislative majorities anyway.

  So now he’s going after the groups that fund them, and never mind the collateral damage.

  Of which there could be plenty to almost everyone short of the super-wealthy.