Trust me when I tell you that the Orange County Republican Party’s governing Central Committee is anything but monolithic. While certainly dominated by conservatives, the Committee of around seventy members most of whom are independently elected from Assembly Districts all around the county, is a dynamic group that includes GOPers of all stripes. I say this because last night, in a packed meeting with over two hundred people in attendance, the Orange County Republican Party Central Committee formally opposed all six ballot measures that will come before voters in the upcoming special election in May, Propositions 1A through 1F – and the vote was unanimous – when OC GOP Chairman, former Assembly Republican Leader Scott Baugh, called for the two voice votes (there was a motion to oppose 1A and 1B, and a separate motion to oppose 1C, 1D, 1E, and 1F), the large crowd voted to oppose them all, with not one “nay” to be heard when opposing votes were called for.
Orange County Assemblywoman Diane Harkey flew down from Sacramento to give a rousing speech in support of the motion to oppose Propositions 1A and 1B, where she panned both measures. Harkey’s speech in opposition to those two measures came after Chairman Baugh and yours truly talked with the committee about the politics surrounding the measures. Baugh pointed out to committee members two startling and unfortunate pieces of information – the first being that it had just been reported that despite all of the economic woes that have caused so many layoffs in the private sector, the number of state employees in California has actually increased – and he also reported to the committee that the Legislative Analyst has already predicted an eight billion dollar shortfall – regardless of whether these measures pass, making the obvious case that these ballot measures do not even solve the state’s fiscal troubles.
The action by the OC GOP has been part of growing trend of Republican opposition to the measures. Last night, other GOP committees such as in Imperial County in the South and Fresno County in the Central Valley also came out opposed to the measures (Imperial did support 1F). Last week the Placer County GOP “split the baby” opposing Propositions 1A, 1B, and 1C while supporting 1D, 1E and 1F. Recently the venerable California Federation of Republican Women came out against the measures, as did the Lincoln Clubs of Orange and Fresno Counties.
Most of the opposition to the ballot measures stems from the massive tax increases that are tied to the passage of Proposition 1A, and a belief that accommodations in the language of the measure’s spending cap language in order to mollify the concerns of public employee unions render the cap too weak to truly constrain government spending. I have also been hearing a lot of discontent about the measure, 1C, that expands the state lottery – most Republicans oppose state-sponsored gambling, and are uncomfortable with the state borrowing money against the proceeds of an expansion of it.
Of course the significance of important Republican organizations like these opposing the measures is highlighted by what is expected be an extremely low turnout for this special election. Pollsters will tell you that low-turnout elections tend to be more dominated by the stalwarts of the two political parties. This will be a challenge for the proponents of the ballot measures, who are counting on the fact that voters may not realize the depth of the tax increases associated with the passage of Prop. 1A, which is the key provision of the six. The ballot title and summary of that measure are very vague when it comes to communicating the $20 billion tax burden that its passage would bring about – although the Legislative Analyst’s review of the measure, which appears in the Voter Information Pamphlet, does list that tax increase as its first bullet point about the measure.
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