(cross posted on My Left Wing and BetterCA.com)
Despite the assertions of it’s backers, Prop. 75 is designed only to weaken the political power of public employees and increase the political power of big business special interests. Time, and time again the author of Prop. 75, Lew Uhler, has shown shocking frankness in discussing his intentions and made clear that they have nothing to do with protecting worker’s rights.
San Francisco Chronicle, 6/8/05:
“This time we’re focusing exclusively on public employee unions.”
San Francisco Chronicle, 1/12/05:
Uhler said the anti-union theme this year is in part a response to what he characterized as the increased political activity of unions such as the one representing state prison guards, which is annually one of the biggest givers to California politicians.
Sacramento Bee, 3/20/05
“To the extent that the political activities of unions might be diminished, then their demands for the kinds of working conditions, pensions, et cetera, that they are now getting will be mollified,” Uhler said. “And I think that will be a boon to our control over governmental activities in our state.” [emphasis mine]
Uhler belives that slicing off the private-sector unions turns the matter into a more purely focused taxpayer issue.
“After all, you and I pay their salaries, and you and I are accomplices in the withholding of funds for political purposes,” he said.
Proposition 75 is not about the rights of workers, it is not about protecting our cities, or healing our citizens. It is about consolidating power to futher a right-wing fiscal policy. Uhler’s constiuents are not our firefighters and nurses but right-wing ideologues like Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, and Robert Bork. Prop 75 is about curbing the power of advocate groups to prevent cuts to vital services, and enable more tax breaks for the wealthy. If teachers, nurses, firefighters, and police are unfairly restricted by Prop. 75, and their voices are silenced, who will fight for the issues that matter to California?
In addition to pushing the deceptive Prop. 75, Uhler runs the National Tax Limitation Committee (NTLC), and organizattion whose primary agenda is the repeal of the federal estate tax.
Andy Furillo of the Sacramento Bee paints a vivid picture of his ideology:
He is an unapologetic McCarthyite and a former member of the John Birch Society whose hard-right ideology has taken him to the fringes of American conservatism.
[snip]
At Yale in the early 1950s, one of Uhler’s closest associates was author and journalist M. Stanton Evans. According to Uhler, Evans is now finishing up a book that “I think has confirmed that Joe McCarthy was on target” in exposing the alleged Communist infiltration of American government and society.
Not only does he think that McCarthy was a swell guy, but he also has a history of adulterating the truth as Reagan’s lackey. In the late 70’s he was Reagan’s hatchet man in their “fight to shut down California Rural Legal Assistance, the program best known for helping farmworkers and other poor people seek legal redress.”
From the same article:
A panel of retired judges appointed by the Nixon administration investigated the charges and found that the Uhler report “in many instances … misrepresented the facts” and that the allegations against CRLA were “totally irresponsible.”
Cruz Reynoso, the former state Supreme Court justice and a law school classmate of Uhler’s at Boalt Hall, was in charge of CRLA at the time of the controversy.
“I used to tell people, if half of what they said in the report was true, we should all be in prison for the rest of our lives,” said Reynoso, who is now a law professor at the University of California, Davis. “So I have to conclude that these were folks, including Lew at that time, for whom the ends justified the means.”
25 years later Ulher is up to the same old tricks: trying to dismantle organizations that represent ordinary working Californians in order to silence their political voice. This time, we know him. This time we have the power to stop him.
[The Alliance for a Better California is a coalition of nearly 2.5 million teachers, firefighters, nurses, police officers, health care workers and average, every day people who are devoting our careers to helping others. We stand united in opposing the damaging agenda that Governor Schwarzenegger is advancing in his November 8th Special Election, and have joined together to defeat the measures he and his allies have placed on the ballot.]
