Californians Prepare Initiative to Make Politics Voluntary, Even for Union Members

Government employee union officials have enjoyed a big advantage over their political competitors: the power to compel members to contribute funds to their causes.

Such political power has served as a massive force in favor of the unsustainable spending that has forced cities like Vallejo, California into bankruptcy with unrealistic salaries and pension benefits for their unionized employees.

Normally only a tiny fraction of Americans choose to donate to candidates or political causes. Yet many government employee unions enjoy the power to compel virtually all of their members into supporting the unions’ advocacy, regardless of how the individual worker feels about that agenda.

That’s one heck of an advantage on the political battlefield, but it comes at the price of forcing, for example, Republican union members to fund Democrat campaigns. Or, conversely, Democrats in Pennsylvania funding then-Republican Arlen Specter’s re-election. It’s wrong, and abuse of the practice has led states like Utah and Idaho to ban the practice.

And California may too, if proponents of a new “paycheck protection” measure have their way.

Armed with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding Idaho’s Voluntary Contribution Act, California proponents of paycheck protection have begun circulating a ballot measure that if passed would get the state out of the business of collecting political cash for its government employee union officials. Political participation would once again become voluntary for the state’s workers.

Officials in those unions that would rather not give their members the freedom to choose for themselves whether to fund the union’s political agenda will no doubt complain loudly. Yet, proponents of reform have an advantage in that a majority of union members themselves have historically supported efforts to give them the power to decide for themselves whether to support political candidates or causes.

The California effort will need to overcome every conceivable obstacle that will be thrown in their path, including those which were used to defeat similar efforts in 1998 and 2005 with Propositions 226 and 75, respectively.

The latest measure enjoys strong support from the well organized tea party movement in California, which is backing the petitioning effort. Substantial funding will be necessary to get the measure passed once it qualifies for the ballot: history shows the officials running many of the state’s public employee unions will say just about anything to persuade a voter to oppose this common sense reform.

The initiative is being called the “Citizen Power Initiative.” More information and petitions are available here.