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Subject: PROPOSITION 227-THE MORNING AFTER: THE DEMOCRACY CENTER ON-LINE
Date: 03 Jun 1998 13:17:34
Dear Readers,
The morning after Election Day. Many of you are people who cared very
deeply about the fate of bilingual education and Proposition 227 and this
morning you are dealing with the disappointment of a lopsided loss. Others
of you are journalists who will be writing in the next few days about the
campaign and its aftermath. In either case, one of the tasks at hand is to
try to understand what happened and why. What I write here won't make
everyone happy, in fact I expect it will make some people angry. I have
great respect for the time, dollars and commitment that so many people
brought to the NO on 227 effort. I offer the following analysis in that
spirit but also with a view that there are some hard lessons to be learned here.
Jim Shultz
The Democracy Center
THE DEMOCRACY CENTER ON-LINE
Volume 14 - June 3, 1998
PROPOSITION 227 - THE MORNING AFTER
By any measure it is a stunning victory - 61% Yes, 39% No. It won in every
county in California but San Francisco and Alameda. Exit poll reports
indicate that the measure even won among the key litmus test, Latino voters.
The day-after headlines, in California and around the nation, have discarded
all the subtleties debated during the campaign and have stamped the results
with one simple message - "Californians vote to end bilingual education".
What happened, why, what lessons are there to be learned and what should we
do next?
WHEN AN ISSUE IS HOT DEAL WITH IT - THE ECHO OF PROPOSITION 13
The outcome of Proposition 227 was not decided this June 2nd, it was
decided more than a year ago when bilingual education's chief advocates took
a no-compromise stand on the issue in the Legislature. It was a mistake and
easy to see why it happened. In the wake of Proposition 187 and Proposition
209 (immigration and affirmative action) all issues with an racial slant
have become so politically charged that bilingual education was turned into
a civil rights issue instead of an educational issue. The problem is that
bilingual education was in fact a legitimate educational issue as well.
Anyone who wasn't hearing complaints from Latino parents wasn't listening.
The challenge for bilingual education's champions was to devise a strategy
to address its weaknesses, protect its successes and steal the wind out of
the anti-bilingual education movement's sails. Instead they convinced
Latino lawmakers to keep reform stalled in the Assembly.
Bilingual's advocates aren't the first ones to make this strategic mistake.
In 1978 the political wind was about providing property tax relief. When
state lawmakers failed over and over again to give voters what they wanted,
with a reasonable tax relief program, the issue was captured by Jarvis and
Gann and Proposition 13. The result (approved by almost the same margin as
227 exactly 20 years ago this week) was a law that tacked on to homeowner
tax relief a tax break twice that size for owners of corporate property.
In 1988 the insurance industry also made the same mistake, bottling up
insurance reform in the Legislature for so long that they got stuck with
Ralph Nader-backed Proposition 103.
What's the lesson? If you've taken responsibility to lead on an issue
where there are legitimate beefs, don't pretend those beefs aren't there.
Deal with them before someone else comes along (like Ron Unz) and deals with
them for you in a destructive way.
DUELING MESSAGES - JARGON AND SIDE ISSUES VS. "PARENTS WITH PICKET SIGNS"
A second lesson to be learned from the campaign is about message.
Like all effective initiative campaigners Ron Unz crafted a strong story
line. It went like this. "Bilingual education is an experiment of the 1960s
that was tried and has failed. 95% of all English learners in California
fail every year to learn English. Parents feel so trapped by the 'bilingual
bureaucracy' that in one Los Angeles school they had to carry picket signs
to get the school to teach their children English". I heard Unz deliver the
tale calmly and robotically over and over again. No matter that it was at
least half fiction. It was a story that sold well to both the media and the
public.
In response, the NO on 227 campaign crafted messages, largely driven
by polling and focus groups, that were too general, too laced with education
jargon and so often focused on tangential issues that it strained
credibility. The first official campaign theme was about a provision in the
initiative that allows teachers to be sued. Later a new theme would be
selected - this one focusing on 227's appropriation of $50 million per year
for adult literacy programs (dubbed "the $500 million taxpayer giveaway").
While these messages may have worked in theory in the sterile simulation of
a focus group, they were no match for Ron Unz's dramatic rhetoric about
Latino parents with picket signs.
Even the campaign's general message, "one size fits all doesn't
work", was too general. Voters are moved by what they can conjure up as
pictures in their minds - little old ladies taxed out of their homes (Prop.
13), immigrants streaming over the border (Prop. 187). When NO on 227
backers tossed out terms like "untested methods" and "academic achievement"
it didn't resonate. When they warned that the initiative would spend $50
million a year on adult literacy, reporters and the public said, "yeah
right, that's why you oppose it."
There were other ways to persuade people. The key was to use real
examples about real kids and real families (not general characterizations)
to show how authentically goofy 227 really is, especially on the issue of
parent choice. When I confronted Unz in public about his "try it you'll
like it" provision - the one that requires parents to put their kids in an
English-only classroom for the first 30 days of each school year whether
they like it or not - both Unz and his initiative just looked half-baked.
The campaign also made a mistake, I think, by having its messages carried
almost exclusively by advocates, public relations people and educators and
rarely by actual parents with children directly affected. The professionals
and their jargon played right into Unz's portrait of a self-protecting
bilingual bureaucracy.
WHAT NEXT?
Now the campaign is over and Proposition 227 is the law. What should
supporters of bilingual education do next? In the next day or so lawyers
for MALDEF and others will go to court to challenge the initiative on
Constitutional grounds. Maybe they will succeed, maybe they won't but I
don't think that bilingual education supporters should just stand aside and
hope that the lawyers bail the issue out in court. I think that parents,
educators and others who genuinely care about bilingual education should
proceed based on two essential principles. First, protect the ability of
parents to select bilingual education for their children. Second, work to
make bilingual education programs stronger and better so that they are worth
choosing.
To protect parent choice we need to help parents understand their rights
under the law, need to sure that districts honor those rights and need to
help parents get the information they need to make their own best decisions.
To make bilingual education programs stronger we need to take seriously the
criticisms leveled during the campaign, many of which resonated deeply in
the Latino and Asian communities.
Finally this - I spent much of Election Day on a school field trip with my
daughter Elly's fifth grade class. Tomorrow they will graduate elementary
school. These children are the bilingual education products of our public
school and I've watched them closely as a classroom volunteer almost every
week for six years. Most are brilliantly bilingual, much more than I am,
but several others (who came to the U.S. in later grades) have not learned
English well and are falling farther and farther behind. Bilingual
education - it works well for some and not for others. That was the issue
we needed to deal with before Proposition 227 and it is still the issue
we need to deal with.
___________________________________________________________
THE DEMOCRACY CENTER ON-LINE is an electronic publication of The Democracy
Center, distributed on an occasional basis to more than 900 nonprofit
organizations, policy makers, journalists and others.
Please consider forwarding it along to those who might be interested.
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are welcome. Past issues are available on The Democracy Center Web site.
The Democracy Center
1535 Mission St. - San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 431-2051 tel./ (415) 431-0906 fax
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web site: http://www.democracyctr.org
==================================================
Date: 04 Jun 1998 21:07:26
Reply-To: Conference "labr.party" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: (fwd) FYIA: 226: Final Hours
To: Recipients of conference <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
X-Gateway: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lines: 129
Here in Santa Monica, we ran our own campaign against 226 and 227. It
was run out of the HERE L814 union hall by Santa Monicans Allied for
Responsible Tourism (SMART) and L814. In the final days SMART turned
out 60 volunteers and L814 about the same. Our goals were to identify
and turnout 2000 NO voters, and to identify 100 new volunteers for
future campaigns. The two main groups we worked on was a list of 1500
union members in Santa Monica and selected voting precincts that were
primarily working-class Latino. Our final results were 1600 NO voters
and 200 future volunteers.
We feel we came out of Tuesday as the strongest political force in our
city. Our next goals are to elect a 5-2 pro-labor majority to our
City Council in November, create innovative new laws to support
worker's rights and union organizing, support the ongoing struggle of
the Miramar Hotel workers, and prepare to assist L814 when they open a
long awaited new hotel organizing drive.
For your interest, and especially for those outside the state, I'm
forwarding my final campaign report that I had made for my union's
(IATSE) rank and file e-mail list.
Michael Everett
Santa Monica, Ca
===========================================================
>The final day of the 226 campaign was unforgettable. It was the
>climax of weeks of phone banking and organizing and the day when all
>our work came together to turn out our voters. LA County had 5000
>union members phoning and walking precincts.
>
>Here in Santa Monica (pop. 90,000) we had an army of volunteers that
>fluctuated between 50 and 100. Half or more were hotel/restaurant
>workers from HERE L814, whose union hall served as campaign
>headquarters. Many of these workers speak limited english, so we're a
>bilingual operation and everything gets translated.
>
>For the past 3 days I'd been running the phone banks with Emma, a
>bartender and L814 shop steward at LAX. On the final day we put our
>elderly volunteers on the phone banks and I was assigned to walk a
>precinct with Marlena, another LAX bartender. Our goal was to pursue
>every voter on our list of identified NO voters and hound them
>relentlessly until they'd voted. Periodically, we'd check the list at
>the polling place to cross off those who had voted.
>
>Our precinct was along 13th St., just south of the Santa Monica
>freeway. It was a working class neighborhood, mostly Hispanic of low
>density apartments and modest houses. I don't know how many times I
>walked these few blocks, but after a while you start to know the
>neighborhood and they start to know you. The idea is to track these
>people down and not accept excuses for not voting -- which we get all
>the time. Some people lie and say they voted, but when we don't see
>their name checked off at the polls, we come back tell them they have
>to vote now. If they say they'll do it later, we tell them there's a
>car out front that will drive them right away. I personally drove
>three NO voters to the polls. Luis, age 24 was a NO voter I'd been
>looking for all day. When I finally found this kid, he was sitting on
>his couch watching TV with absolutely no visible reason for not
>voting, as I pointed out to him, but I still couldn't get him out. A
>couple of hotel workers joined me and we hammered on him til we
>finally got him in my car and down to the polls. Later we laughed
>about it and he said he wouldn't have voted unless I'd pushed him.
>
>Another person I drove to the polls was a new citizen who'd never
>voted before. I don't speak spanish and we couldn't communicate very
>well so all I could do was hand her our door hanger and say "226, 227 vote
>no, no, no!". When I drove her back, I told her she made history,
>which I believe, and I hope she understood me.
>
>About 7:30, there was a last frenzy to haul in our targeted voters.
>They locked the poll doors at 7:59 which of course we immediately
>protested. At 10 seconds til 8 I spotted one of my NO voters ambling
>down the street with his voting pamphlet like he had all the time in
>the world. I yelled at him to run, but this guy was in a daze and he
>didn't get to the locked door until after 8. Nevertheless, I'm
>pleased to say, we convinced them to open the door again for one last
>NO voter, so that's where the campaign ended for me.
>
>After that I picked up my 16 year old daughter and headed downtown to
>the Biltmore for the victory celebration. The first returns weren't
>good and by the time we got downtown it didn't look like it would be
>much of a celebration. We weren't prepared for the surreal scene at
>the Biltmore. Not only was there a NO on 226 celebration, but also
>Checchi, Boxer, Grey Davis, and others. The place was swarming with
>Democratic power figures and their hangers-on, plus the media. It was
>pretty chaotic and the first person we ran into in the lobby was
>Johnnie Cochran trailing his own small crowd behind him.
>
>I went to a bar and asked the (HERE L11) bartender where the
>Heinsberger Room was. He smiled and said he didn't speak english.
>When I turned to leave, he told me he was just joking and gave me the
>directions in perfect english. I guess it was a 227 joke.
>
>The 226 celebration was in a much smaller room and more modest than
>the others -- not so many suits and lots of tee shirts. With 24% of
>the vote in, it looked to me like we were losing. Art Pulaski, head
>of California labor and Miguel Contreras, head of LA labor gave
>rousing victory speeches and we all wondered how they could muster the
>enthusiasm, given the returns so far.
>
>We headed for Checchi's party under the assumption that for $40
>million he'd at least be providing a decent spread and free drinks,
>which he wasn't. We couldn't get in to the Grey Davis party because,
>being the winner, there was a very long waiting line.
>
>We left the Biltmore in a downbeat mood about 11:00 pm. It wasn't
>until on the freeway heading home that we heard on the radio we were
>going to win by six points.
>
>That's what I saw on June 2, but I'm sure there's thousands of more
>stories out there.
>
>In a few days I'll have some info on exactly what we accomplished here
>in Santa Monica, including what my own rate of success was in turning
>out my assigned voters, and I'll let you know.
>
>In the interest of lighting fires elsewhere, please pass this post
>along to anyone interested.
>
>Michael Everett
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
