Paycheck Protection Law

California is poised to hold a special election in November. One of the initiatives placed on the ballot is the so-called Paycheck Protection Law, which will require public employee unions to get written permission from members each year before using that member's money on political activities. Of course I support this law. As I wrote here to the CTA president a few days ago:

I love the initiative that will require you to get my permission every year before you spend my dues money on political causes. Let me tell you right now, you won't get it. Save your 37 cent stamp.

Dan Weintraub, columnist and blogger for the major Sacramento newspaper, has this to say:

The unions, and the Democrats who depend on them for much of their political money, fear this provision could seriously weaken their campaign firepower.

As a result, Democrats have left open the possibility of negotiating a truce with the governor in which he would renounce the measures he already has qualified for the ballot, plus the union dues initiative. In return, they would help him place a new slate of compromise proposals on the ballot and campaign with him for those measures.

Unfortunately, Paycheck Protection laws are easily gotten around. Apparently only Utah's is working as intended.

FoxNews has an interesting story here about the potential schism in the AFL-CIO, which I wrote about here. Their story ends with more information about the Paycheck Protection Law. Only a few states have such laws, a fact I find highly interesting.

And in a related note, however tangentially, yesterday's major Sacramento newspaper reported that the state Attorney General has filed suit to keep the redistricting proposal off of the special election ballot because one version was submitted to the attorney general and a slightly differently worded version was placed on petitions to qualify the proposal for the ballot. As you can imagine, I'll be blogging more about this as the election grows nearer.