FASCINATING STATE BALLOT OFFERS MOTIVES TO VOTE

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “FASCINATING STATE BALLOT OFFERS MOTIVES TO VOTE”

          Disgust with politics has come easily this fall, given a pair of flawed, often less than truthful major party presidential candidates and a one-party U.S. Senate race that’s been one-sided from the start.

          Revelations of the lewd, misogynistic remarks by Republican nominee Donald Trump when he thought no one was listening also turned off large numbers of voters.

          But with ballots already in the hands of many voters and Election Day upon us (Editors: If running this column prior to Nov. 8, please insert the word almost before upon in this sentence), there are also plenty of reasons not to toss those ballots in the trash, but rather use them wisely.

          Start with the presidential election itself. Seldom has there been more contrast in approach and temperament than this year; never before has there been an opportunity to make gender history or nix it. Even if voters detest both candidates, the wise thing is for them to think hard about who would damage America least and cast ballots accordingly.

          Local elections coinciding with the presidential vote are also vital across the state, with many cities and counties proposing taxes and the pace of growth at issue in several places.

          There are also hotly contested congressional races in areas as disparate as Sacramento, San Diego County and Silicon Valley, and about a dozen legislative races that figure to be close. In some of these battles, a vote or two might spell the difference between Democrats having two-thirds control of the state Legislature, able to override Republicans on issues from taxes to budgets – or not.

          The main issues in various locales are different, from the age of an incumbent to financial indiscretions by a candidate’s family to crucial matters of policy.

          These are important questions, but not as far-reaching as the 17 state ballot propositions, which ask voters to turn thumbs up or down on everything from recreational marijuana use to taxes, “bareback” pornography, plastic bags, prescription drug prices, the death penalty and easier paroles.

          More than $400 million will be spent for and against the near-record crop of initiatives on the ballot, showing how crucial some interest groups think they are.

          Ironically, some of the most far-reaching proposed measures have drawn little money or television advertising. There’s plenty of controversy, for example, over Proposition 57, Gov. Jerry Brown’s attempt to ease parole for convicts guilty of crimes legally classified as non-violent. Opponents note this category leaves out things like soliciting murder or human trafficking. But the measure doesn’t make early releases automatic for anyone; it would still be up to parole boards and the governor to decide which “non-violent” prisoners get paroled.

          There have also been few ads for or against Proposition 58, which would restore bilingual education – instruction of English-learner pupils in their native language until they’ve mastered English – as the default method in public schools, rather than allowing it only for students whose parents have signed a request form.

          Conflicts over other measures have been loud and vituperative. Opponents of the cigarette tax in Proposition 56, for example, bemoan the fact public schools would get none of the money it would produce. They never say that if the proposition loses, schools also get no new funds.

          Complex issues abound, too, on this ballot. Should all proposed laws in the Legislature be posted in print and online for at least 72 hours before they’re voted up or down? Or would that prevent constructive legislation from being written and passed in the dying hours of a legislative session? Does more transparency mean less corruption or merely less flexibility? These are questions voters can answer with a yes or no vote, even if they have little clue about what happens when the midnight oil is burning in the state Capitol.

          And there’s the matter of requiring condoms in pornography: Would this proposal mean less commerce and tax revenue for California, or would it mean more safety for porn performers? Or both? Or would the law be irrelevant as soon as it passed, subsumed by the tide of private and non-commercially produced porn videos now flooding the Internet?

          Altogether, California hasn’t seen such a complex, far-reaching ballot in years. Which makes it hard to find an excuse for not voting this time.

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

LIES, HALF-TRUTHS ABOUND IN PROPOSITION CAMPAIGNS

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2016, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

     “LIES, HALF-TRUTHS ABOUND IN PROPOSITION CAMPAIGNS”

          It’s no secret that lies and half-truths are a central part of the ongoing presidential campaign. Entire websites are now devoted to the pursuit of fact-checking Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, with one saying well over half the statements of both are at least half false.

          There probably should be similar fact-checking for the campaigns around the 17 state propositions on the state’s ballot, on subjects as diverse as pot, pornography, plastic bags and, of course, taxes.

          Untrue statements abound there, too, both in the official ballot guide received by millions of voters in early October and in the expensive radio and television ad campaigns for those initiatives and the ballot’s lone referendum.

          Some of the most egregious, obvious and oft-repeated half-truths and exaggerations come in the harsh campaign against Proposition 56, which sees tobacco companies desperately trying to stave off a $2 per pack hike in cigarette taxes, with equivalent increases on other tobacco and nicotine products, from cigars to e-cigarettes.

          The no-on-56 ads, funded mainly by big tobacco companies like R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris USA, claim the measure “cheats” schools out of about $600 million per year. The claim stems from current tax formulas giving education the lion’s share of state tax money. But those rules don’t apply to special taxes; they can be designated for specific purposes.

          The cigarette tax increase would cheat no one out of anything because schools don’t currently get that money and will not whether Prop. 56 passes or not. Which makes this claim a half-truth at best.

          The anti-56 ads also say most of its money would go to “special interests.” In fact, the vast majority would help Medi-Cal fund health care for the poor, in some ways a logical use of the money because studies show poor people smoke more per capita than the wealthy, and so are afflicted with more tobacco-related health problems.

          Then there are Props. 65 and 67, about plastic bags. Ballot arguments for 65 and against 67, which seeks to uphold the Legislature’s ban on thin plastic grocery bags, first claim the ban will produce “up to $300 million” in paper bag fees for grocery stores selling them at 10 cents each.  But “up to $300 million” is a loose approximation. The actual amount may be five bucks or $290 million, or it may be nothing. The number isn’t exactly a lie, but it’s also not true, say the grocers, who claim they lose money on paper bags, which they say cost them 14 or 15 cents apiece.

          Again, beware unspecific numbers purveyed in ballot measure advertising.

          The half-truths around Prop. 58 are different, not involving money. Here, backers of bilingual education seek to overturn the partial ban on this education method, implying in their ballot arguments that bilingualism will teach English to immigrant pupils better than current English immersion classes. But before the 1996 Prop. 227 imposed today’s partial ban on bilingual classes – where students are taught primarily in their native language while also learning English – pupils gained English proficiency more slowly than they have since immersion became prevalent.

          Even the title of this proposition, placed on the ballot by state legislators, is misleading: “English proficiency” are the title’s first two words, masking the fact that it repeals the requirement that children be taught in English unless their parents sign a form requesting otherwise. Which means the whole campaign for Prop. 58 is based on verbal sleight of hand.

          The pharmaceutical industry will pour almost as much money into the campaign against Prop. 61 as Big Tobacco has in battling 56. Companies like Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb, Bayer, Amgen and more are behind ads that claim 61 will actually raise prescription prices. In fact, it would limit state programs like Medi-Cal to paying the same for drugs as the Veterans Administration pays. The presumption behind the ads is that if 61 passes, Big Pharma will raise prices to everyone, including the VA.

          That’s an untested presumption, with absolutely no evidence to back it up.

          Put this all together with other ads on still more propositions and Californians are seeing more lies and half-truths this fall than in any election season in memory. “Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware)” is an understatement this year.

         

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     Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net

PROP. 55 – PROOF THERE’S NO TEMPORARY IN GOVERNMENT

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2016, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
  “PROP. 55 – PROOF THERE’S NO TEMPORARY IN GOVERNMENT”

          When cities close down street traffic lanes and paint “experimental” bicycle paths on pavement once used by cars, the so-called experiment almost never fails. The change virtually always becomes permanent.

          Even in Portland, Ore., where as an “experiment” officials early this year installed small sound-making bumps to let drivers know when they drift into a bike lane and resentful motorists responded by ripping out 70 percent of those bumps, the bumps are back. There was no serious consideration of removing either the once-experimental bicycle path or the humps.

          It’s much the same with “temporary” taxes. California has seen only one “temporary” levy disappear on schedule, a one-time $7 billion surcharge on income taxes of the wealthy imposed by Republican Pete Wilson shortly after he became governor in early 1991.

          So it’s no surprise that the majority of new taxes imposed by the 2012 Proposition 30 are about to become all but permanent, lasting at least through 2030.

          This is what the current Proposition 55 is about. Gov. Jerry Brown pushed hard for Prop. 30 four years ago, spending liberally from his political war chest to get the measure passed. He promised at the time the increases would be temporary, petering out after 2018 – and he’s not actively supporting Prop. 55 now. None of the money behind it comes from Brown or any political action committee related to him. But he’s not opposing it, either.

          Prop. 30 did work. Using the $6 billion-plus per year raised via its small sales tax increase and its income tax hikes for the wealthy, Brown and the Legislature kept California’s general fund solvent.

          The central question of Prop. 55: Can this continue without that money? A general belief the money would be vitally needed in even a slight economic turndown is the main reason there is no significant opposition to extending these tax hikes another 12 years.

Much of the $50 million-plus behind Prop. 55 comes from public employee unions, notably the California Teachers Assn. and the Service Employees International Union. The California Hospital Assn. and the California Medical Assn. are also big contributors. All remember the years of belt-tightening before Prop. 30.

They also know that voters are often happy to tax the rich, which is what Prop. 55 does. It would eliminate the sales tax portion of Prop. 30, while extending the tax surcharge for the top 1.5 percent of the state’s earners. Single people would pay nothing for this unless their adjusted gross income tops $263,000, or twice that for married couples. The top tax rate would be 13.3 percent for annual incomes above $1.1 million.

          Most voters have little sympathy for those folks, one reason polls all year have showed about two-thirds of voters support Prop. 55.

          Because the money is all earmarked for education and health care, this measure also dovetails neatly with polling that shows about 60 percent of voters believe California schools should spend much more than they do now. The 2014 average of $9,595 per student was well below the national average of $11,667, and placed this state 42^nd in per student education spending, even though it was in the top ten for per capita state taxes paid.

          While few voters can rattle off those numbers, they get the idea when they see peeling paint and leaky roofs in school buildings.

          So the idea of making near-permanent the Prop. 30 tax increase on the wealthy seems like a natural this year.

          But nothing in Prop. 55 would actually lead anyone to believe it would promote better education. Yes, districts may add a few more courses here and there. But even Brown’s three-year-old system of giving more of the Prop. 30 money to schools with the most low-income and English-learner students has not discernibly improved education. Test scores in most places have been static.

          There is no doubt, then, that if and when it passes, Prop. 55 will be yet another example of a temporary tax made near-permanent. In fact, its take has already become part of the status quo, which means voters can expect more school-funding propositions down the line.

 
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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

LITTLE GOOD NEWS ON CAMPUS ANTI-SEMITISM

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2016 OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“LITTLE GOOD NEWS ON CAMPUS ANTI-SEMITISM”

          There’s little or no good news on the campuses of major California universities when it comes to officially tolerated anti-Semitism.

          For a short time, it appeared UC Berkeley might do something constructive, cancelling a student-taught one-unit course whose syllabus essentially advocated erasing the state of Israel and its Jewish citizenry.

          Called “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis,” this class was resurrected less than a week after it was declared dead. It is now being taught by an undergraduate member of the anti-Israel group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Its one-sided political orientation was clear and never denied even though academic officials said it was sanitized before its revival, but the youthful instructor says no, there’s been no real change – just some scurrilous statements changed to questions.

          Like most of the movement to boycott Israel, divest from companies doing business there and sanction the world’s only Jewish state (known as BDS), this class is less about settlements (often built on land bought from prior Arab owners) and more about the hate that’s spurred Palestinian terrorist attacks on Jews around the world and not only in Israel or the West Bank. (Example: The Goldenberg Deli in Paris was bombed so often the space is now a men’s clothing store. All that’s left of Goldenberg is an awning.)

          When its syllabus contained declarations of supposed wrongdoing by the Jewish state, the Berkeley class was in clear violation of the UC Regents’ policy on course content, which forbids using classrooms for political indoctrination. Making those statements into supposed questions for discussion changed nothing real, but satisfied weakling administrators.

Meanwhile, no one in authority appeared to notice that the syllabus violated the university’s six-month-old policy against bigotry by trying to defame and delegitimize the Jewish state in ways that fit squarely with the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism.

          So the vaunted new policy lacks teeth.

          Things are not rosy at UCLA, either. Last year’s student government president, law student Milan Chatterjee, transferred to New York University after a brouhaha over his refusal to allow $2,000 in student government funding for a town hall event to be sponsored by the UCLA Diversity Caucus. Some claim that caucus is a front for the local SJP chapter.

          Chatterjee, an Indian-American of Hindu faith, told the caucus his student government administration would not sponsor “a position that will alienate a significant portion of students.” So, he said, there would be no money unless the event was not associated with the BDS movement, which often spouts openly anti-Semitic rhetoric at UCLA and other campuses.

          Anti-Jewish groups led by SJP then campaigned to censure Chatterjee. Later, UCLA’s Discrimination Prevention Office concluded that his refusal of funds if the event was to be BDS-linked violated a university policy calling for impartiality. Huh?

          Chatterjee, 27, wrote Chancellor Gene Block that he was “leaving UCLA due to a hostile and unsafe campus climate.”

          Elsewhere, San Francisco State University continues a “partnership” with the terrorist-linked Al-Najah University in the Palestinian West Bank.

          SF state President Leslie Wong has not acted on demands to cancel the arrangement, one university spokeswoman telling a reporter the school has many such understandings. “The purpose…with each of these international universities is to provide our students and faculty the opportunity to broaden their own intellectual landscape… Partnerships are initiated by faculty members based on their academic interests.”

          This one was set up by Rabab Abdulhabi, an ethnic studies professor and founding member of a national campaign to boycott Israeli universities and academics. She apparently did not care that activists in Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip and advocates eradicating Israel, hold half the student council seats at Al-Najah.

          Or that the back cover of one Al-Najah “information kit” featured 19 “shaheeds” –  deceased suicide bombers.

          Should Californians’ tax and tuition dollars go toward a relationship with this university, which the director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy calls a hotbed of “terrorist recruitment…and radicalization of students?”

          It all makes a sad picture. No UC student has been punished for campus anti-Semitic activity in years, while fear forced Chatterjee from UCLA.

          So far, UC’s new policy is mere words; it has not been used for anything. Which means California universities so far are doing little or nothing to curb their plague of anti-Semitic bigotry.

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     Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

WHAT A TRUMP WIN COULD MEAN FOR CALIFORNIA

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2016, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

     “WHAT A TRUMP WIN COULD MEAN FOR CALIFORNIA”

          A year ago, as the presidential campaign swung into high gear, no one in either major political party – except Donald Trump – took seriously the possibility he might win the Republican nomination for president.

          Turns out Trump was right; everyone else was wrong. It didn’t matter how much he lied: The fact checking service Politifact finds there’s significant untruth in 84 percent of what Trump says publicly, but he’s expanded his likely voting base from about 30 percent of Republicans during the early primary season to at least 40 percent overall. (Hillary Clinton’s falsehood rating: 63 percent.) That’s a huge achievement, demonstrating his adherents don’t much care what he says. They figure after years of watching his television reality show, they know him and what he means, even when he’s lewd.

          Meanwhile, some recent polls show Democrat Hillary Clinton winning New York by a 20 percent vote margin and California by at least 17 percent. Sure, she consistently has had a small overall edge over Trump in national polling, but with so much of her support coming from just two states, she could win the popular vote but lose in the Electoral College if Trump wins battleground states like Ohio and Florida by thin margins, still getting all their electoral votes.

          So despite revelations of past vulgarity and misogyny, victory for Trump is possible, even if oddsmakers give Clinton better than a 70 percent chance of winning.

          If Trump wins, there could be enormous effects on California, with its tough environmental laws and its giving citizens more rights than the federal government does, in everything from marijuana use to assisted suicide in limited circumstances.

          Federal law almost always trumps (no pun intended) state laws, and it’s likely a Trump win would leave Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. So there could be plenty of actions to reverse the agenda pushed here for the last 12 years by Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown.

          They’ve insisted on tougher pollution standards for cars than the federal ones. Brown this year won an extension of the state cap-and-trade program aimed to cut down greenhouse gas production and reduce dangers of climate change.

          But Congress and a President Trump could pass laws with completely different standards and negate what California has done.

          If Trump wins, the bullet train project that’s been the apple of both Brown’s and Schwarzenegger’s eyes could abruptly stop. Yes, there would still be funding from voter-approved state bonds, but no more from the federal government. And if Trump and congressional Republicans outlaw cap-and-trade programs, another bullet train funding source would dry up quickly. Viaducts already underway or built in Fresno and Madera counties could become monumental bridges to nowhere.

          While Brown in the interest of fighting climate change resists letting coal trains traverse California to ship supplies from ports at Oakland and elsewhere, a Trump-controlled Energy Department would likely demand the use of California ports for coal and shale oil exports to places like China and the Philippines.

          If Trump imposed heavy new tariffs on Chinese goods, prices for furniture, toys and many other categories would rise precipitously in California – unless there’s a sudden revival of domestic makers for these items.

          And if Trump really does build a long, high wall along the Mexican border (regardless of who pays for it), the flow of undocumented immigrants will slow. That would raise prices for everything from hotels and car washes, roofing and strawberries, just some of the industries employing many of the undocumented.

          There are signs that illegal immigrants, who often anticipate political events that may affect them, realize Trump could win. One indicator: Undocumented immigration increased considerably in late summer, with a near-record 10,000 Central Americans – most traveling as families – caught at the border in August, for a total of more than 68,000 in the first 11 months of federal fiscal 2016. Altogether, 370,000 undocumented migrants were apprehended in those same 11 months, surpassing the total for 2015 with a month to go.

          When big numbers of the undocumented try to crowd in, it usually means they anticipate changes in immigration policy – and only one candidate promises that.

          All of which means a Trump presidency would have huge consequences for California, even if the state votes heavily against him.

         

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

POST-ELECTION QUESTION: WHO WILL BROWN APPOINT?

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2016, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

     “POST-ELECTION QUESTION: WHO WILL BROWN APPOINT?”

          The rumor has persisted for almost two years, since state Attorney General Kamala Harris announced she was running for the U.S. Senate seat long held by retiring Democrat Barbara Boxer.

That rumor – until after next month’s election, it can be no more than that – suggests Gov. Jerry Brown might appoint his wife of 11 years, lawyer Ann Gust Brown, to serve the last two years of Harris’s term, which expires in 2018, when Brown also will be termed out of the office where he’s spent a total of 16 years.

          Gust Brown’s name began coming up in political circles when Darrell Steinberg, the former president of the state Senate, chose to run for mayor of Sacramento in June, a race he won by a handy 59-26 percent margin. He takes office in December.

          By then, if the polls are correct in showing her with a big lead over fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez, Harris will be elected and possibly even seated, if Boxer steps aside early to let Harris have a few weeks more Senate seniority.

          Before he ran for mayor, Steinberg was considered Gov. Brown’s likely choice to take over for Harris as the state’s top lawyer, then possibly run for the office on his own in 2018 against current Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, the early frontrunner in that year’s race for attorney general.

          Considering how Jones has performed in his current office and how well he’s done in two statewide elections, Jones might now be a logical choice for whatever office he next wants.

          But things are not always so simple. Gust Brown, formerly the top in-house lawyer for The Gap clothing stores, has shown an appetite and interest in public affairs. Jerry Brown often calls her his leading advisor. She is 58, fully 20 years younger than her husband and unlikely to want to retire just because he’s termed out.

Jerry Brown displays little interest in disappearing, either. So is it possible that after a year or so as attorney general, Gust Brown could declare herself a candidate for governor, with her husband swapping roles to become her leading adviser?

          It’s happened before, most notably in Alabama, where segregationist Gov. George Wallace was termed out in 1966 and his wife Lurleen became governor in name for two years while Wallace remained the de facto power.

          It’s also true that California attorneys general commonly go on to become governor: Jerry Brown is one; so was his father, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown. Republicans George Deukmejian and Earl Warren also followed that route.

          What about the ethics of such nepotism? “If she’s qualified, it’s less of a problem than if she’s not,” said Robert Stern, former president of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies. “Everything I hear about her says she’s a good lawyer. It would be up to the voters to decide whether to elect her on her own later on.”

          Meanwhile, other Democrats don’t think the Gust Brown scenario is entirely unlikely. “I wouldn’t put it past him,” longtime campaign manager Garry South told a reporter last summer. South managed the campaign of current Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who for a few months contested Brown for the 2010 Democratic nomination for governor before settling for his current job.

          There’s no doubt giving a very visible job to his wife (both houses of the Legislature would also need to confirm her) would provide her with a leg up in running against the likes of Newsom, state Treasurer John Chiang, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and billionaire investor Tom Steyer, all either declared or potential 2018 candidates for governor.

          This field could change dramatically if Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein chooses to retire after her current term ends the same year. Some would-be governors might quickly become senatorial hopefuls. Feinstein’s decision might be greatly influenced by whether or not Democrats regain control of the Senate this fall, allowing her to once again chair the Intelligence Committee.

          All this explains why the Gust Brown rumors don’t die – and likely won’t unless Harris should lose this fall or Jerry Brown names someone else to her current job.

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

PROP. 58 – MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION ON FALL BALLOT?

CALIFORNIA FOCUS

 FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2016, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
          “PROP. 58 – MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION ON FALL BALLOT?”

          Most of the attention this fall has properly gone to the fierce presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Some voters have also given substantial attention to many of the propositions on next month’s ballot, covering everything from plastic bags to condoms in pornography, from taxes to legalized marijuana.

          All these are important questions, but the proposition that could have the most impact of all on California’s future is largely being ignored. That’s Proposition 58, simply described as “Non-English Languages Allowed in Public Education.”

          This measure would all but repeal the 1998 Proposition 227, which passed by more than a 3-2 margin and has banned most bilingual education instruction in public schools ever since. Schools are still allowed to set up dual-language immersion programs if they and the parents involved choose to.

          Proposition 227 has long infuriated teachers unions, in part because it effectively did away with the salary differentials paid to thousands of bilingual education teachers in California before it passed.

          No, the implication in the ballot title that non-English languages have been banned from this state’s public schools for almost 20 years is not correct. Public schools, whether charters or not, never stopped teaching French, Spanish, Latin, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and many other languages.

          But Prop. 227 has meant that the vast majority of pupils from kindergarten through high school are taught primarily in English. That’s in contrast to the thousands of classrooms that previously taught English-learner students primarily in their native language – and a little English – with the purpose of eventually having them become proficient in English.

          The reason 227 passed so handily when it did was not anti-Hispanic racism, as some supporters of Prop. 58 imply, but because English-learner children were progressing only very slowly toward proficiency. As a result, employers had trouble finding young English speakers to fill jobs in supermarkets, banks and other businesses where employees are often not college graduates.

          The immediate results of 227 were successful. For example, more than 32,400 students, or 10.3 percent of the English learners in the Los Angeles Unified school district, largest in California, became fluent in English between December 1998 and December 1999, an increase of about 20 percent over the last year of predominant bilingual education.

          But some Latinos say they felt damaged by the change. “There was a racist undertone when it came to Spanish speakers,” Democratic state Sen. Richard Lara of Bell Gardens told a reporter. “That’s how I felt.”

          By contrast, many prominent Latinos supported 227, in spite of Lara’s perception. Jaime Escalante, the late famed calculus teacher portrayed in the 1988 film “Stand and Deliver,” was the “yes” campaign’s honorary chairman. Leaders of the Para Los Ninos organization vocally backed 227, too.

          Now a member of the Senate’s leadership, Lara sponsored Prop. 58 as the Legislature put it on the ballot. The measure, says the ballot argument supporting it, would enable “schools to use the most up-to-date teaching methods to help our students learn (English).”

          But the original author, sponsor and prime funder of Prop. 227, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ron Unz (an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate last spring) insists his measure is still needed. He says Prop. 58 supporters ignore the good 227 continues to do.

          In the ballot argument against 58, he says it would repeal the requirement that English be taught in public schools and that it would “overturn policies that actually improved language education.”

          It’s a bitter disagreement. Unz claims 58 would bring back ineffective bilingual education programs and mire Latino children in English-learner status for many years. “This really is a sneaky trick by politicians in Sacramento,” he said. He adds that he ran for the Senate mostly for the opportunity the campaign gave him to oppose 58 in major media.

          For sure, this is a disagreement that deserves at least as much voter attention as any other major measure to be decided this fall. But so far, neither side has raised much money. As of the last reporting date, the Yes side had $326,000 in hand, while opponents had nothing.

          Which means a measure with immense potential effects on California’s future is being all but ignored.

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net