Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has sent a scathing letter to campaign staff of Yes on Proposition 32 for attempting to delude voters into believing he is supporting the measure.

The mayor’s letter responds to the Yes campaign’s use of quotes taken out of context in the campaign’s ballot argument and in a web video ad designed to suggest that the Mayor backs the CTA-opposed initiative that would tilt the political playing field even farther in the direction of corporations, Super Political Action Committees (Super PACs), and other special interests.

“I am shocked to learn that you used my name and an out-of-context quotation of my words in a blatantly deceptive way…..I adamantly oppose Prop 32. Prop 32 purports to be about ‘stopping special interests.’ In fact, Prop 32 strengthens the political power of corporate special interests and Super PACs while silencing the political voice of California’s everyday heroes – such as teachers, firefighters and nurses,” writes the Mayor in the Aug. 17 letter.

Ever wondered why the super rich contribute to super-secret super Political Action Committees (Super PACs)?

The investigation team over at Huffington Post wondered the same thing and came up with an answer: return on investment (ROI).  In business terms, return on investment is what someone gets back on money put to work.  Often it’s more dollars, expressed as a percent.   (i.e. “I earned 10% ROI on my investment in Apple stock.”  Or, “I earned 47% ROI because of the new tax breaks the guys I helped elect extended to my corporation…..”)

Did I mention that CTA-opposed Proposition 32 on the November ballot, the Special Exemptions Act, won’t restrict Super PAC political contributions? It won’t – and in fact it will allow corporate donors to increase their spending advantage over contributions made by union members.  Corporate donors already outspend these working women and men by a ratio of 15:1.

Read more about what these Super PAC investors see as their ROI for their massive and often secret donations – Huffington Post: What Super Pac Donors Want

These wealthy interests have put Proposition 32, the Special Exemptions Act, on the November
ballot and are trying to sell it to voters as limiting the power of money – labor and corporate money – on politics.

In point of fact, the group members said, the measure would undermine the ability of middle
class workers to support dedicated public officials while allowing wealthy interests – including vast classifications of business entities, Super Political Action Committees (Super PACs), and billionaires to wield their financial weapons without any restrictions at all.

A number of educators and other working women and men gave up some of their summer free time on Friday to learn more about Proposition 32, the misleading CTA-opposed initiative that would tilt the political playing field even further in favor of wealthy special interests.

The educators, including (from l.) Donald Stauffer, who teaches in the Washington Unified School District, and Tim Paulson, a psychologist in the Davis Unified School District, during  a meeting in downtown Sacramento discussed elements of the flawed measure that would give additional power to Political Action Committees (Super PACs) run by corporate special interests, Wall Street Investment firms, and billionaires. Specifically, Proposition 32 would allow real estate developers, billionaires, many national PACs, as well as all corporate Super PACs, spend money without limits in political races.

That is one of the reasons that public interest organizations, including California Common Cause, are joining CTA in opposing Proposition 32.

The educators will be talking to their colleagues and others about the importance of registering to vote and to cast ballots against Proposition 32 on November 6.

A newly released survey focusing on all initiatives on the Nov. 6 California ballot finds voters overwhelmingly supporting Proposition 30, the CTA-backed measure sponsored by Gov. Jerry Brown that would raise income taxes on the wealthy and temporarily boost the sales tax to stave off more than $6 billion in trigger cuts to public education. The survey finds the Brown initiative with a 56.2-39.2% positive margin.

The survey found little support for Proposition 38, the competing tax initiative sponsored by Wealthy Civil Rights Attorney Molly Munger, which is trailing 35.0-54.2%.

The results were released Thursday morning by representatives of the California Business Roundtable and researchers from Pepperdine University during a news teleconference highlighting their first edition of their on-line polling for all initiatives. The organizations said they would be providing updated surveys twice a month.

The early polling shows 60-28.9% support for CTA-opposed Proposition 32, the measure that would further tilt the political landscape in favor of wealthy special interests that already outspend labor unions by a 15 to one ratio.

Researchers cautioned that the polling is early, prior to the full implementation of efforts by a coalition of labor, educator, and public interest groups to educate the public about the real intent, sponsors, and impact of the CTA-opposed initiative.

“At this point the campaign hasn’t really launched. People are reading initiative [title] without any other information.  I do expect that number to change. Things tend to get tighter as the election come closer. ….this is people’s initial response to it without any other context,” said Dr. Michael Shires, of Pepperdine.

Opponents of Proposition 32 noted that “It’s not surprising that the first poll shows a large margin. This is where these initiatives have always started, but once voters learn the
deceptive nature of these proposals, they reject them. They will do the same with Prop 32.”

“Proposition 32 is not what it seems. It does not
level the political playing field, but actually creates special exemptions for big
corporate special interests to write their own set of rules. Under Proposition 32, these corporate special interests would be able to continue spending as much money has they want on elections, but the measure’s provisions will restrict teachers and
other workers.”

“When voters come to see Proposition 32 for the deceptive measure it is, they will reject it, just as they have the earlier similar measures put before them in past elections.”

Of those 800 persons included in the survey, 133 reported they have a family member in a public sector union. Another 63 said a family member was in a private sector union, and 18 reported family members in both public and private sector unions.  The vast majority of the respondents, 598 of those polled, said no one in their family belonged to a union.

Pepperdine researchers insisted that the survey uses new technology – not phone calling – that is cross-referenced to ensure a group of roughly 800-900 representative survey takers for each poll.