Governor digging deep to save legacy projects
Gov. Jerry Brown is getting an assist from everyone from Hustler’s Larry Flynt to venture capitalist John Doerr in a fourth-quarter effort to pulverize Proposition 53 — the state initiative aimed at stopping the multibillion-dollar highspeed rail and delta water tunnel projects in their tracks.
In recent weeks, labor unions, Indian tribes that run gaming operations and health and other business interests have ponied up $7 million to try to defeat the measure. Leading the way: $500,000 from Doerr, $500,000 from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and $244,500 from the Kaiser Foundation.
Even Hustler Magazine founder Flynt kicked
in $100,000.
The biggest contributor by far, however, is the usually tightfisted Brown himself. He has poured $4.1 million of his own political money into the TV ad campaign against Prop. 53.
“It looks to me like he’s seen some polling and he’s getting worried,” said Dean Cortopassi, the Stockton tomato magnate who put Prop. 53 on the ballot.
“With 17 state ballot measures and a presidential election like never before, it’s hard to break through the noise,” No on 53 spokesman Steve Maviglio said when we asked about the ad blitz.
If passed, Prop. 53 would mandate statewide votes for any project financed with more than $2 billion in state revenue bonds.
Brown’s TV ads are pushing the argument that Prop. 53 would affect some local projects and force them onto the state ballot.
However, the independent Legislative Analyst’s Office said relatively few projects are likely to hit the $2 billion threshold, other than high-speed rail and the twin tunnels that Brown wants to build in the delta to send water to farms and cities in the southern half of the state. Brown considers both of those as his legacy projects.
Cortopassi spent about $4 million collecting the signatures to put Prop. 53 on the ballot, but he can’t match Brown’s ad blitz.
“There’s no more water in the well,” he said. Family shout-out: Political insiders got a bit of a chuckle over Hillary Clinton’s “special shout-out to Supervisor Scott Wiener” and everyone who worked on behalf of family leave during her recent fundraising rally at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
Wiener is in a neckand-neck race with fellow Supervisor Jane Kim for the state Senate seat being vacated by termed-out Mark Leno.
It may be a coincidence, but Wiener has been solidly with Clinton — while Kim backed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary.
It may also be coincidence that Kim has been dating the estranged husband of Clinton adviser Ann O’Leary — who happens to handle family issues, like family leave, for the campaign.
Whatever the case, it was special. Sugar shake: What started out as a David vs. Goliath battle over soda has turned into a $36 million Godzilla vs. Mothra knock-down, drag-out between the beverage industry and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg — with Sen. Bernie Sanders caught in the middle.
Sanders found himself the unexpected star of the beverage industry’s $24 million Bay Area TV ad campaign opposing penny-an-ounce soda taxes in San Francisco and Oakland after he came out against a similar tax in Philadelphia as regressive.
Sanders asked for the ads to be taken down — saying Philadelphia’s tax was three times higher than what’s being proposed here.
The soda industry, having made its point — and not wanting to get into a fight with the nation’s leading progressive just weeks before the election — quickly agreed.
“The ad was already slated to come down, but we are going to respect the senator’s wishes,” said beverage industry spokesman Joe Arellano.
“But the fact of the matter is, he did say this about a similar tax in Philadelphia,” Arellano said.
The antisugar forces, nonetheless, worked the Bernie back-off for all it’s worth.
“Big Soda’s campaign has been one big lie, just like Big Tobacco,” said Dan Newman, spokesman for the San Francisco and Oakland initiatives.
Speaking of “big” — campaign finance records show that Bloomberg has put $12 million into the latest soda tax campaign, and he appears to be matching the industry’s last-minute ad buys pretty much dollar for dollar. And finally: Reader Richard Schulke sent us a snapshot of a sign at the Port of San Francisco telling riders of the Tiburon ferry to “queue along the rail” and riders of the Vallejo ferry to form a “line along the wall.”
“Seems the fancy Tiburon crowd gets to queue up while the poor working-class folks have to get in line,” he said. “Classism at its worst.”