Meathead Defeated

Rob Reiner's proposition 82, about which I have blogged in the past, was soundly defeated in California.  E. J. Dionne does the weeping. 

When it comes to spending their tax money, voters can be wary even of very good causes.  While the political world was obsessed with the Republican victory in a special election for a California congressional seat, the truly sobering news for liberals was in the statewide voting. Proposition 82, the ballot measure that would have guaranteed access to preschool for all of California's 4-year-olds, went down to a resounding defeat, 61-39 percent.

     Not only that -- voters also rejected a $600 million bond measure for the state's libraries. A vote against libraries? Yes, the bonds went down 53-47 percent.

And bear in mind that these spending measures appeared on a primary ballot at a time when Democrats were holding a fierce contest for their gubernatorial nomination while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger faced only token Republican opposition. There were roughly 500,000 more Democratic than Republican primary votes -- meaning that a significant number of Democrats voted against both propositions.

Dionne presents a honest list of the reasons for the measure's defeat.

The preschool initiative seemed to have everything going for it. There is ample evidence that quality preschool really does improve the life chances of poor children. The measure had celebrity backing from Rob Reiner, the actor and director. The program was universal: it would have helped every child in California, not just the poor. And it was financed through substantial tax increases only on the very wealthiest Californians -- couples earning more than $800,000 a year and individuals earning over $400,000 a year. The vast majority of Californians would not have seen their taxes go up.

     Almost all these assets became liabilities.

Reiner, whose enthusiasm for preschooling is genuine and infectious, ran into controversy when it emerged that a state commission he chaired had spent $23 million promoting the value of early learning -- even as Reiner was organizing to put the initiative on the ballot. It sure looked like tax dollars were being used to promote an actor's favorite cause.

Because the measure covered everyone, including kids already in preschool, it was very expensive. The wealthy rebelled against the big income tax increase -- the top rate would have gone from 9.3 percent to 11 percent -- and bankrolled the opposition. Private preschool providers worried that the public provision of preschool would threaten their businesses.

There was also the good government point: Californians have grown sensibly weary of "ballot-box budgeting'' through which initiatives are used to mandate both programs and the tax increases to pay for them. That robs state officials of flexibility at times of budget turmoil, which Californians have seen a lot of lately.

The last is important.  California government has been almost paralyzed by the initiative process.  It is a very good sign if the voters now realize this. 

But Dionne puts his finger on the most worrisome aspect of this defeat for liberals.  It is hard to imagine a better location or better circumstances for progressive reform.  If you can't get big new social legislation here, you probably can't get it anywhere.  Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing: we report, you decide.