Experts Expound: Proposition 89

The nurses are wrong with this picture. They tried to turn revenge into
public policy by whacking the chamber and its business allies with a 4-by-6,
and the teachers–among others–were smart enough to see through the ruse.
The nurses got greedy, combined a semi-good idea with a personal vendetta
and created a big fat target that the CTA and the Chamber could bring down
with a pea shooter.

The nurses overreached. They could have gotten public financing easily, but
they got greedy.

It’s what happens when a special interest endorses a supposed
anti-special-interest effort. It’s about swinging the balance of power in
their favor, not creating a balance.

Strange bedfellows, indeed! The Chamber’s opposition and the nurses’ support
are obvious. The teachers’ opposition is the wild card–CTA apparently
realizes that the current system, despite its many flaws, has worked pretty
well for teachers (while the schools themselves are failing).

It’s actually pretty clear. The Teachers know that it’s overreaching, and
that many unions are organized in such a way that they would be impacted by
this. The Teachers hate the Nurses because the Nurses did not pull their
weight in fighting Proposition 75 last fall. And the Nurses are doing this
to clear the way for a universal-health-care initiative in ’08. Simple.
Worlds are colliding! CTA and Cal Chamber fighting the Nurses makes for some
pretty odd times. Thankfully the nurses will lose this battle.

The people from whom we sought opinions: Andrew Acosta, A.G. Block, Roy
Behr, Don Wilcox, Jon Fleischman, Evan Goldberg, Deborah Gonzalez, Dan
Schnur, Jason Kinney, Tom Kise, Karen Hanretty, Kevin Spillane, Michael
Houston, Adam Mendelsohn, Matt Ross, Sam Delson, Mike Madrid, Morgan
Crinklaw, Dave Lesher, Richard Zeiger, Mike Madrid, Margita Thompson,Ken
Gibson, Ralph Simoni, Bob Hertzberg, Scott Baugh, Steve Maviglio, Tony
Quinn, Peter DeMarco, Adam Probolsky, Barbara O’Connor, Jack Pitney.