Paycheck Protection Campaign Gathers Signatures

The Citizen Power Campaign to end public employee union corruption is now officially gathering signatures  to qualify the Citizen Power Initiative for the November 2010 ballot.  Campaign leaders expressed pleasant surprise that the title and summary issued by Attorney General Jerry Brown “describes accurately and fairly what the initiative will do”.  Campaign leaders were concerned that Brown (who enjoys a special relationship with these unions) might follow the recent trend of unfairly politicizing initiative titles and summaries.  The Citizen Power Campaign has issued a press release announcing the signature gathering launch.  The Campaign is rumored to be ready to announce some major endorsements.

Campaign leaders have tipped their hat to Attorney General Jerry Brown for issuing a fair title and summary.  The Citizen Power Initiative title and summary are as follows:

MAKES ILLEGAL THE USE OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEE WAGE DEDUCTIONS FOR POLITICAL ACTIVITIES. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.

Amends the California Constitution to make it illegal to deduct from wages or earnings of a public employee any amount that will be used for political activities as defined. Prohibits any membership organization that receives public employee wage deductions from using those funds for any political activities, but does not apply to deductions for charitable organizations, health, life or disability insurance, or other purposes directly benefitting the public employee. Authorizes the Legislature and Fair Political Practices Commission to adopt related laws and regulations. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Probably minor state and local government implementation costs, potentially offset in part by revenues from fines and/or fees.

Campaign leaders were surprised because of Brown’s special relationship with the public employee unions targeted by the initiative.  Jerry Brown is the “father” of California’s public employee union corruption problem, having signed the law that authorized these unions 30 years ago.  Brown’s legacy is that the public employee unions now siphon billions of taxpayer dollars out of state services into political slush funds used to drive runaway spending and fight reform.  Today, Californians are concerned about Brown’s relationship with ACORN and his taxpayer-funded public employee unions backers.

Now, the Citizen Power Campaign has begun signature gathering to put the measure on the November 2010 ballot.  They have issued the following press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Mark Patlan, (888) 949-4245
MarkPatlan[at]ReformTaskForce.com

CITIZENS LAUNCH PETITION DRIVE TO QUALIFY INITIATIVE TO STOP POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN CALIFORNIA

Tustin, CA [December 8, 2009] –  Californians this week launched a signature gathering campaign to qualify the Citizen Power Initiative for the November 2010 ballot. The Citizen Power Initiative is a constitutional amendment that will end the corrupt practice of public employee unions using members’ dues collected by the government for political donations.

The people behind the Citizen Power Initiative are nearly 1,000 taxpayers who have banded together as the Citizen Power Campaign (UnplugThePoliticalMachine.org).  This group operates under the direction of state and national leaders of the Tea Party Patriots movement, such as Dawn Wildman and Mark Meckler, and seasoned public policy advocates, such as Robert Loewen and Mark Bucher. Loewen is president of the Lincoln Club of Orange County (www.lincolnclub.org), which is providing seed money for the campaign, and Bucher is a veteran of past campaigns to limit the power of public employee unions.

The proponents have until mid-April to render nearly 700,000 valid signatures to the Secretary of State.  Tea Party Patriot leader Dawn Wildman reports over 240 county, city, and town coordinators, representing over 10,000 citizen activists, many active in the Tea Party Patriots, who, in the past three weeks, have pledged to collect over 930,000 signatures.

“The Citizen Power Campaign is gaining grassroots momentum quickly,” said Wildman, an initiative proponent and California coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots. “People understand this is the most important reform since Proposition 13. While Proposition 13 helped limit tax increases, it did nothing to stop runaway spending. The public employee unions are the driving force behind runaway spending, and the Citizen Power Initiative is the first step to fix this by taking some of the money out of California politics.”

“The Citizen Power Initiative is the only way to truly reform California’s state government,” says Mark Meckler, one of five proponents of the measure. Meckler, who also serves as the California coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, explained, “The problem is the public employee unions have become so powerful in controlling the state’s lawmakers, they’ve created a corrupt political machine. The government should not be in the business of collecting political contributions from government employees. It’s a corrupt, rigged system, and we taxpayers are left holding the bag.”

Furthermore, funneling forced union dues into political causes that a teacher might find objectionable is un-American, said Larry Sand, a retired public school teacher and proponent of the Citizen Power Initiative. “The average teacher pays roughly $1,000 annually in union dues, about 30% of which are used for politics. That means the National Education Association, California Teachers Association and its local affiliates collect about $100 million each year for political purposes. Shouldn’t the decision where to spend that money be left up to the teacher?”

Even worse, public employee unions are spending taxpayer money to block reform. Mark Bucher, who authored Proposition 226 in 1998, said, “We might have prevented or reduced our state budget crisis in 2005 with a series of reforms, but the public employee unions spent more than $148.5 million in essentially taxpayer dollars on political campaigns to defeat them.” Those reforms included common-sense measures such as spending limits and a rainy day fund. Bucher said, “California will never be able to fix its financial problems as long as the public employee unions can use taxpayer dollars defeating even modest reforms.”

Allan Mansoor, mayor of the City of Costa Mesa and an Orange County deputy sheriff, added, “The Citizen Power Initiative will level the playing field. No other special interest group has the power to automatically collect money for politics from someone’s paycheck. Every other interest group has to ask for their political contributions.  Public employee unions can just take them and the employees never even see the money.” Mansoor is also an initiative proponent.

Attorney General Jerry Brown officially approved the initiative language late last week. Ironically, in 1977, then Governor Jerry Brown gave the public employee unions the right to unionize. Since then, public employee unions have spent billions of dollars of taxpayer money to influence politicians and promote campaigns that support the unions’ political agenda. This corrupt system – in which the public employee union negotiator sits across the bargaining table from the politicians they’ve supported – has made politicians accountable to powerful public employee union bosses, rather than voters and taxpayers.

To read the full text of the initiative and to learn more, visit www.UnplugThePoliticalMachine.org and click on “The Solution.”

To download petitions and join the Citizen Power Campaign’s online community, visit www.UnplugThePoliticalMachine.ning.com.

THE CITIZEN POWER CAMPAIGN

The Citizen Power Campaign combines grassroots taxpayer organizers, retirees, and political veterans. The initiative’s official proponents are Mark Meckler and Dawn Wildman, California’s Tea Party Patriot state coordinators; Larry Sand, retired public school teacher and founder of the California Teacher Empowerment Network; Allan Mansoor, Costa Mesa Mayor and Orange County Deputy Sheriff; and Mark Bucher, Orange County attorney and author of the 1998 ‘paycheck protection’ initiative, Proposition 226. The Lincoln Club of Orange County, a group of about 200 business owners and executives who believe in limited government, lower taxes, and the promotion of free enterprise, has been an early supporter and financial contributor to the Citizen Power Campaign.

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