State needs a ballot initiative banning public-employee unions from politics
| Monday, Nov 02 2009 06:15 PM
Last Updated Monday, Nov 02 2009 06:15 PM
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The Tea Party Patriots have a solution to create meaningful political reform in California. It is to reduce the disproportionate power of the public employee unions, which form the largest special interest in politics by far.
For example, the California Teachers Association alone has 300,000 members, each of whom are required to pay union dues of approximately $1,000. Out of these dues, approximately $300 goes for political campaigns -- a total of $90 million each year. Of course, the argument will be made that the public employees are not forced to make the contributions and can "opt-out," but the overwhelming pressure on the employee to "go along to get along" is palpable. If you have ever wondered why elected officials seem never seem to listen to the people, it's because they know the unions got them elected, not the average voter.
Elected officials rarely have the guts to stand up to the unions, because anyone who dares gets voted out on the next election. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to take them on in 2005 with five initiatives that would have reduced the power of the unions and the size of government. The unions spent over $100 million defeating them all.
The result is that the public employee unions represent a permanent special interest group, advocating for more and more government, regardless of the consequences. Public employees were given the right to unionize in California in 1978, and it has gone from being a golden state with unlimited opportunities to bankruptcy. No matter how much noise we make about the issues facing California, the politicians will never listen because the vast majority, all the Democrats and most Republicans, are elected with the support of the public employee unions, and the rest are scared.
The solution is passing a constitutional amendment called the Public Employee Paycheck Protection Act, through the initiative process (i.e. taken directly to the people), prohibiting the government from collecting union dues from public employee paychecks if any portion of the dues goes toward politics. Stated another way -- simply level the playing field by forcing the unions to get campaign contributions the way everyone else has to do it, by convincing someone to write them a check. It is simply wrong for the government to use taxpayer funds to collect money out of the paychecks of government employees, which then ends up going right back into the political campaigns of the politicians who gave them that right in the first place. It is corruption, plain and simple.
The politicians in California will never support this type of initiative. Most of them have cut a deal with one or more public employee unions. The only way it will happen is if the people rise up, put it on the ballot, and then turn out to vote in large numbers. This would be historic, and would forever change the balance of power in California.
Qualifying a constitutional amendment in California requires collecting nearly 1.2 million signatures from registered voters. This has never been accomplished with a volunteer force gathering signatures.
The historic nature of a victory here would have a major national impact and circumvent corrupt politicians of both parties. This is a terrifying prospect for those power-hungry politicians who think that how we are governed is really none of our business.
Ken Mettler is a co-organizer of the Bakersfield/Kern County Tea Party Patriots and a member of the Kern High School District board of trustees.
