On the heels of the tremendous momentum achieved by the Millionaires Tax coalition, an agreement with Governor Brown resulted in a merged revenue-generating measure.  In just four weeks California Calls and our partners collected thousands of signatures to help qualify the new measure. Union allies collected over 200,000 volunteer signatures. On May 9, more than 1,470,000 signatures were submitted to qualify the Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012 for the November ballot.

A core group of organizations have been meeting and developing plans for how we can take the momentum built by the Millionaires Tax and transform it into organized support to win the merged measure, now called The November 2012 Schools and Local Public Safety Act, and set the stage for longer term tax and fiscal reform.

Reorganizing as the “Reclaim California’s Future Coalition,” the strategy is to build a growing, visible coalition of community-based groups and unions promoting the measure and developing a field and online program that will excite and turn out our base: low income communities, people of color, immigrants, young voters, and faith voters. Currently, the steering committee for this effort is comprised of: ACCE Action, APEN Action, California Calls Action Fund, California Partnership, CFT, Courage Campaign, PICO California and SEIU 1021.

With a severe shortfall in expected state revenues, the state legislature is now considering an  $8.3 billion in devastating budget cuts to Medi-Cal, CalWORKs, IHSS, child care, the courts and the Cal Grant college financial aid program.  It makes clear the critical urgency of passing the merged revenue measure in November. Without it, an additional $6.1 billion in “trigger cuts” are proposed, further decimating  both California’s education and safety net systems.

The revised budget also points to a continuing strategic battle on what the long-term solutions to the state’s chronic budget crisis should be. Many of us do not accept that the only choices are raising moderate new revenue and more “austerity” cuts. There is a whole system of corporate tax loopholes and commercial property tax disparities that could and should  provide critical financial resources to solve the ongoing budget crisis. Ultimately, we want to build power between now and November to  wage and win permanent and lasting solutions  to  the ongoing fiscal dilemma in 2012 and beyond.

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Eight years ago, a state initiative that would have expanded health coverage to a million more Californians — Prop 72 — lost by a razor-thin margin of 180,426 votes out of over 12.6 million votes cast.  It was the closest margin in a state ballot battle in the past 16 years. A small enough margin that could have been closed by organizing — phone calls and door knocking to turn out just 3,000 more votes in each California county.

At California Calls, our goal is to deliver this margin of victory for progressive tax and fiscal reform.  The November 2012 Schools and Local Public Safety Act would raise six to nine billion dollars for schools, health care, and local governments. It is a critical first step to closing the state’s budget deficit and slowing the legislature’s slash-and-cut trend of budget balancing. We plan on turning out a quarter million new and occasional voters in support of this initiative on Election Day, November 6^th. Getting there requires a serious, strategic and sustained effort.

For three months, the organizations and grassroots leaders of California Calls have been in intensive training to make such a decisive impact in November. In March, more than 500 grassroots leaders fanned out across the state and surveyed 90,000 voters about the November revenue initiatives –the Our Children, Our Future initiative, Thomas Steyer’s Clean Energy Bill and theBrown-Millionaires Tax ballot measure.

Results from the March 2012 Non Partisan Survey. 78% of contacts strongly or somewhat liked the Brown-Millionaires Tax merged measure. 66% strongly or somewhat liked the Steyer initiative. Our Children, Our Future failed to reach majority support with only 47%

On May 15, the Alliance launched a Summer Civic Engagement program with 1,000 grassroots leaders contacting, educating and inspiring new and infrequent voters to get to the polls on June 5. Our goal was to contact 120,000 new and occasional voters in 11 counties, and identify 67,239 voters who support our long-term vision of tax and fiscal policy reform. We ended up surpassing our goals with 126,953 contacts made and a whopping 101,770 supporters identified. The daily and volunteer organizers surveyed Californians about what motivates them to vote, and distributed a non-partisan voter guide on the June 5 State Ballot Initiatives.

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In the last two weeks, 37 organizations regrouped in Southern California and the Bay Area pivoting plans to support and qualify a ground-breaking compromise initiative to raise billions in new revenue for California, stop draconian cuts to education and services, and begin to restore fairness to our tax system.

This compromise represents a new turning point in our journey to reorient California’s tax and budget policies towards equity and fairness.

How We Got Here

In December, with strong support from a diverse coalition of allies, the California Calls Action Fund joined with the California Federation of Teachers and the Courage Campaign to file a “Millionaires Tax” Initiative. The measure was proposed to hike the tax rate on the super-rich, raising a projected $6 to $8 billion earmarked for K-12, higher education, health and human services, and public safety.

After three months of intense organizing, the Millionaires Tax Coalition gathered 592,000 signatures and continued to build broad public support, demonstrated in five public opinion polls. On March 14, California Calls and our partners decided to join forces with Governor Brown and key labor unions to set aside our separate proposals in favor of a stronger and unified initiative.

In a matter of days, we helped to create the most progressive income tax measure in the entire nation—and demonstrated the power of our grassroots labor and community coalition to forge an agreement with the traditional Sacramento centers of power.

How the New Measure Compares

In summary, here’s what the new compromise measure does:

1. Of the projected $9 billion raised in the first year, $8 billion will come from a progressive income tax increase for individual Californians making more than $250,000 a year or households making more than $500,000 per year. No one making less than $250,000 a year will see an income tax increase.
2. Over the next seven years, the wealthiest 2% of Californians will pay more every year in higher income taxes. We garnered two more years than the Governor’s original proposal.
3. The new measure reduces the Governor’s proposed sales tax increase from ½ cent to ¼ cent, and stays in place for just four years.
4. 85% of the revenue will be from the higher bracket income taxes, and only 15% will be from the ¼ cent sales tax.
5. A replenishment of the General Fund will help restore numerous programs including K-12, community colleges, police and fire, and programs for seniors, the disabled and poor.
6. Makes permanent the public safety “realignment” of 2011, guaranteeing funding for local governments who take on responsibility for non-violent offenders transferred out of costly state prisons.

California Calls supports this new measure because:

• The vast majority of the new revenue comes from the wealthy (almost 90% vs. 60% in the governor’s original).
• Though we don’t like the sales tax, the new measure cuts the proposed sales tax increase in half.
• The revenue is intended to address multiple needs: education, social services, realignment and the budget deficit.
• It allows for a more united effort to pass a badly needed revenue measure this year. Winning will require a united movement.

Compared to the Governor’s original proposal the new measure represents an increase in the tax rate on the very highest incomes of between 1% and 3%, more money — around $2 billion in the first year — to restore cuts, and a 50% decrease in the sales tax.

The future of higher education was one of the most pivotal points in our intense negotiations. Compared to the Millionaires Tax, the new measure does not earmark funds for the CSU and UC systems.

The Governor, Senate Pro-Tem Steinberg, Speaker Perez and other elected leaders publicly committed work so that a portion of the new revenues will be used to support the CSU and UC systems.

Now, it is up to us to hold the elected leaders of Sacramento to their word.

“We must hold them accountable,” said Dolores Huerta during the Southern California meeting. “We need to organize our elected officials to meet with hundreds in our own communities. We will tell them to honor their commitment to keep California’s colleges open and affordable to all.”

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