The California Labor Federation has released its endorsements for November’s propositions and unsurprisingly the influential union has made defeating Proposition 32 a top priority. The CA Labor Federation represents 2.1 million union workers and it joins other unions in the state who want to crush Prop 32 at the ballot. As a refresher, Proposition 32, the "Paycheck Protection" Initiative,” would ban corporation and unions from using automatic deductions to pay for political causes. These deductions are the major source of political fundraising for unions.

California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski commented the following about the measure: “Prop 32 isn’t at all what it seems. It’s nothing more than a deceptive attack on workers funded by corporate special interests and billionaires. This measure won’t solve Sacramento’s problems. By rigging the system to benefit the very wealthy and corporate CEOs, Prop 32 would actually weaken our democracy and threaten middle class priorities. Once voters learn the truth, they’ll reject this cynical attempt to give more power to the already powerful.”

Here is the complete list of positions taken by the union:

Want to know how much has been donated to the campaigns for November’s ballot measures? And who is exactly making those donations? The nonpartisan organization MapLight recently launched a website entitled “Voter’s Edge California” that allows easy access to show how much money interest groups like gas and electric utilities and attorneys and law firms have contributed. To describe its stated mission, MapLight notes that the site “allows users to gain insights into how campaign contributions affect policy so they can draw their own conclusions about how money influences our political system."

Find a guide to using the Voter's Edge service can be found here.

Here are links to campaign donations for each of the 11 measures:

California Ballot Propositions on the November ballot :

You’ll recall that for weeks after the June primary the fate of Proposition 29 remained unclear because the vote was too close to call. While supporters of the initiative eventually conceded defeat, there’s a new twist: supporters have requested a recount in parts of Los Angeles County. The vote was very close and a supporter of the campaign filed the request just before the deadline in order to re-examine the votes in 191 precincts.

Only a little over 5 million Californians voted in the primary and the margin on Prop 29 was just 29,565 votes. The Bee reports that “Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan said his department will begin the recount process, tallying the ballots electronically before starting a manual count midweek. He said he expects the cost of the recount, which could take more than a week, to break down to about $5,700 a day. The campaign requesting the recount must cover that amount in daily deposits, though taxpayers pick up the tab if the process changes the outcome of the election.”

You’ll recall that if Prop 29 passed, it would have increased the tobacco tax to fund cancer research. Tobacco companies bankrolled the campaign to defeat the measure.
 

Unions in California don’t want to take any chances when it comes to Proposition 32, so they are raising huge sums of money to defeat the measure. They are so concerned about it because the initiative takes away labor's primary funding source: automatic payroll deductions from members, which gives unions the means to make political donations and exert political influence. Technically, Prop 32 bans both corporate and union contributions to candidates, but unions are crying foul over a loophole that would allow corporate interests to still make campaign donations.

The Chronicle points out a key point: “while the measure also bans donations from corporations to political candidates and candidate-controlled committees, it doesn't ban contributions from limited liability companies, also known as LLCs, or from limited partnerships or real estate trusts - which represent some of California's biggest political donors to both major parties.”

The No on 32 campaign is rallying around the claim of “Stop the Special Exemptions Act” as they argue that the measure would allow Super PACs to take over politics in California because they would be exempt from the initiative’s provisions, and in its words, “corporations [would be able to] create secretive front groups and making unlimited campaign expenditures.”

To see who is contributing money around Prop 32, take a look at this picture:

In addition, the No on Prop 32 campaign has released the following video:
 

The November election may be months away, but Governor Brown isn’t wasting any time. He has already released a campaign video in support of his initiative, Proposition 30, to raise taxes in order to support the state budget. You’ll notice the ad manages to avoid any mention of raising taxes. View the ad here: