“Taxpayer Organizations” That Are Fronts For Unions
In November 2000, California voters approved Proposition 39, which allows school districts to seek voter approval for school construction bonds at a 55% threshold instead of a two-thirds threshold. One of the conditions in Proposition 39 required of school districts seeking the 55% threshold for passage is to establish a Citizens Bond Oversight Committee, with the requirement that “One member shall be active in a bona fide taxpayers’ organization.” (See California Education Code Section 15282.)
I scoffed at that provision and figured it wouldn’t be long before the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO and its regional affiliates created their own “bona fide taxpayers’ organizations” to undermine bond oversight committees and make sure taxpayers remain a generous source of revenue for the government and the people who live off of it.
That has surely happened with the case of the Middle Class Taxpayers Association in San Diego, one of two obviously phony taxpayer organizations that float about nowadays to provide cover for the union tax-and-spend agenda.
The Middle Class Taxpayers Association in San Diego – FAKE!
The Middle Class Taxpayers Association, formed in 2011 in San Diego, betrays its true agenda with the code words in its mission, as reported in the leftist Ocean Beach Rag: “MCTA will focus on pocket-books issues such as healthcare coverage, housing affordability, quality of life, small business development, asset building, moral public budgeting, employment self-sufficiency, lifetime education, retirement security, and consumer safety.” (They forgot to include “investment” in this list.) In other words, more taxes, more programs, more spending.
A post on the web site of the San Diego County Republican Party claims that “the ‘Middle Class Taxpayers Association’ isn’t a new voice for responsible stewardship of our tax dollars. It’s a front group shilling for the San Diego (Central) Labor Council. The Labor Council doesn’t even try to hide its involvement.” No surprise, the Middle Class Taxpayers Association opposed Proposition A (Fair and Open Competition) and Proposition B (City Employee Pension Reform) on the June 5 ballot in the City of San Diego.
In the summer of 2011, the Governing Board of the Southwest Community College District in Chula Vista declined to reappoint Rebecca Kelley, the representative of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, to its Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee for the $389 million Proposition R bond measure, instead placing a representative of the Middle Class Taxpayers Association on the oversight committee.
That so-called taxpayers’ representative is Matt Kriz, political director of International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, District Council 36 and Local 831. As reported earlier by the Dayton Public Policy Institute, the board of directors of the Southwest Community College District is about to vote on a policy to require contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement with construction unions to work on projects funded by Proposition R. Even the college newspaper was able to make the connection:
Builder Decries Loss of Oversight Members: SWC Board Replaced Two on Prop. R Committee over the Summer – Southwestern College Sun newspaper – October 7, 2011
Also, see Breaking: Labor Corruption…SD Labor Council Seeks to Oust Taxpayer Advocate from Oversight Committee – posted on San Diego Rostra by Ryan Purdy – July 12, 2011
The real taxpayers’ organization in San Diego County is the San Diego County Taxpayers Association. In addition, Richard Rider’s San Diego Tax Fighters is a reliable source of information on local fiscal responsibility.
The Contra Costa County Senior Taxpayers Group – FAKE!
I only checked the existence of this phony organization when construction union officials handed me a letter from the Richmond-based “Contra Costa County Senior Taxpayers Group” on May 18 outside an event hosted by the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association. The letter reiterated union-backed attacks on a study showing that school construction in California is 13%-15% more expensive when a school district requires contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement with unions.
Using web searches, I only find one example of the Contra Costa County Senior Taxpayers Group involved in policy issues: on June 18, 2009, Susan Swift – the executive director of the Contra Costa County Senior Taxpayers Group – spoke to the Brentwood City Council in support of a requirement for contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement to work on the Brentwood Civic Center. (The union requirement was approved on a 3-2 vote.) Swift is a former staffer to two San Francisco Bay Area Democrat state legislators and received the endorsements of numerous Democrat politicians and unions when she ran unsuccessfully for Director of the West Contra Costa Healthcare District in 2004.
The real taxpayers’ organization in Contra Costa County is the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association. There is also a small group called the Alliance of Contra Costa Taxpayers, which still seems to pop up occasionally to oppose new taxes but whose web site has been neglected for several years.
The Mother Lode Taxpayers Association – BONA FIDE or a POLITICAL FRONT?
I was reminded last week of my old 2000 prediction about fake taxpayer groups when I read about the controversy concerning the legitimacy of the Mother Lode Taxpayers Association, a group founded in 2010 that established a Political Action Committee on April 12, 2012 for independent campaign expenditures in support of Frank Bigelow, a Republican candidate for the 5th Assembly District facing off in the November election against former Republican Assemblyman Rico Oller. (See June 5 primary results for this district here.)
Now, I’m guessing that Frank Bigelow (just like Rico Oller) would be a solid vote for fiscal responsibility in the California State Assembly. But I wouldn’t regard the three donors to the Mother Lode Taxpayers Association’s Political Action Committee to be special interest groups known for their philosophical resistance to relentless tax increases and government expansion. It received $150,000 from the California Real Estate Independent Expenditure Committee, $75,000 from the California Dental Association Independent Expenditure PAC, and $10,000 from the California Cattlemen’s Association PAC (CATTLE PAC).
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (which endorsed Rico Oller) issued a press release noting “fake taxpayer groups like this undermine legitimate taxpayer organizations…” Yet, I notice that the web site for the Mother Lode Taxpayers Association has been active in other local campaigns in the past three years: see here. The executive director, Heidi Morton, is active in Republican and conservative causes in Tuolumne County.
So is the Mother Lode Taxpayers Association bona fide or not? I hope so, and I hope it will join the other legitimate taxpayer associations in California in the lonely fight for fiscal responsibility.
A Fairly Trustworthy List of Taxpayer Organizations in California
I don’t know every listed group, but I believe the National Taxpayers Union (based in Washington, D.C.) has posted a fairly accurate list of bona fide taxpayer groups in California: California is the Best Example of How to Run a State’s Economy into the Ground.
Kevin Dayton is the President and CEO of Labor Issues Solutions, and is the author of frequent postings about generally unreported California state and local policy issues at www.laborissuessolutions.com.