Teachers Union Shows Clout in Fight Against Prop. 174 : Politics: CTA has spent millions of dollars and engaged in fierce campaign tactics. Proponents have been unable to persuade political leaders who support school vouchers to endorse the initiative.

SACRAMENTO — In the battle over the school vouchers initiative, the California Teachers Assn., which represents 230,000 public schoolteachers, has cemented its reputation as a free-spending special interest willing to use fierce campaign tactics.

Pumped up by a multimillion-dollar campaign, the union could emerge from the vouchers fight as perhaps the most potent force in state politics.

“They’ve shown they can toss $10 million with the best of them,” said Democratic fund-raiser Duane Garrett, one of the few Democrats who openly backs Proposition 174. “They are at the top of the charts in terms of an influential special interest.”

The public campaign is being waged on the airwaves, where the coalition of public school unions is deluging voters with television and radio ads attacking Proposition 174.

But behind the scenes, the CTA-led coalition has displayed an extraordinary ability to dominate the campaign, beginning in 1991 with a bold effort that blocked the then-fledgling initiative from reaching the ballot.

Now with only a week to go before the Nov. 2 vote, the opposition has left proponents of Proposition 174 unable to raise money or persuade political leaders who otherwise support the concept of tax-funded vouchers to endorse the measure.

After the anti-174 coalition threatened to mount an all-out campaign against a prominent politician who supported the initiative, he changed his stand and now opposes it. In other instances, Republican officials who had been political rivals of the CTA have taken to stumping for the initiative’s defeat.

With Proposition 174 trailing by more than 2 to 1 in opinion polls, individuals who oppose it have threatened to stop patronizing a fast-food chain whose president donated to the Yes on 174 effort.

Outspent by nearly 10 to 1, the measure’s frustrated proponents use what money they have to run against the public school unions, calling them a monopoly and trying to portray them as uninterested in the welfare of children.

They have taken to filing lawsuits charging that public schoolteachers and administrators have used classroom time and public resources to campaign against the proposal.

“People think the CTA is some nice, fourth-grade teacher. Truth is, they are a union--and their union was being threatened,” said Mike Arno, who has been a consultant to the pro-voucher forces.

The coalition fighting the initiative includes the 1-million-member California PTA, two teachers unions representing 270,000 teachers, and associations and unions representing administrators, school board members, bus drivers and other school employees.

In all, the groups have raised more than $16 million, with the CTA chipping in $12.3 million, making the fight over school vouchers one of California’s costliest initiative campaigns.

In recent weeks, opponents have spent much of that money on direct mail and phone banks to help ensure that the right voters turn out. They are making 25,000 phone calls a day in a massive get-out-the-vote drive.

Although many of the most active opponents of Proposition 174 are driven by the fear that their livelihood is at stake, they also are convinced that the system of public education would be destroyed if Proposition 174 passes.

The initiative would provide parents of school-age children with tax-supported vouchers to apply to private or parochial school tuition. The opponents argue that the initiative would drain at least $1.3 billion from public schools in the first two years, assuming that 500,000 children in private academies use the $2,600 vouchers. Proponents say the initiative would expands parents’ choice of schools and create competition that would force public schools to improve.

Proposition 174’s opponents believe that as students transfer to private schools, taking with them money generated in per-pupil funding from the state, the public schools would deteriorate. They fear that the students left behind would be the hardest to educate and that the public school system would be destroyed. Along the way, teachers would lose jobs and union membership and influence would wane.

“The CTA is forced to do a lot of things that by our very nature we would not normally do,” CTA President Del Weber said. “People will defend their homes and their property. I will defend the right of kids of this state to have hope, to have education. If you say you’re going to take that away, you have, in the Wild West, drawn on me. I’m going to draw back.”

The CTA had the political equivalent of a showdown in August.

Former Rep. Tom Campbell, a moderate Republican who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate last year, announced that he was running for a Silicon Valley state Senate seat.

At the time, Campbell was a proponent and fund-raiser for Proposition 174. Realizing that Campbell would be running a campaign that included a pro-voucher stand, former CTA President Ed Foglia declared that he would run against Campbell.

Weber, a former Anaheim High School mathematics teacher, told reporters that the CTA not only would support Foglia, “we would saturate that area” with money and campaign workers.

The CTA last year spent almost $1 million on legislative campaigns and another $1.3 million to lobby lawmakers, placing it fourth among the Capitol’s highest rollers after oil companies, doctors and insurance companies.

Campbell made an about-face, announcing that after reading the measure more closely, he opposed it. The CTA disarmed, and Foglia dropped out.

Ron Smith, Campbell’s campaign manager, said CTA pressure had nothing to do with Campbell’s flip-flop. Campbell, a Stanford law school professor, simply read the initiative more closely, Smith explained, and “his supporters came to him and said you haven’t looked at the ramifications of 174.”

From the start of the campaign, in 1991 and early 1992, the public school unions made it clear that they would go to extremes to kill the initiative. In an early bulletin to teachers statewide, Weber called the voucher proposal “evil,” and the CTA devised a strategy to stop it from reaching the ballot.

Teachers and PTA members were dispatched to street corners, shopping malls and movie lines where the paid petition gatherers plied their trade. Although most of the anti-voucher volunteers just explained their position to people to persuade them not to sign the petitions, there were some reports of overzealous opponents shoving, arguing with and even forming a human chain around signature-gatherers to prevent them from doing their jobs.

Consultant Arno, who organized the pro-voucher petition drive, said in a court declaration that he was offered $400,000 not to circulate the voucher petitions.

Although Proposition 174 will go to a vote Nov. 2, the anti-voucher campaign succeeded in keeping the measure off the November, 1992, ballot. That bought the CTA time to build a war chest by assessing its 230,000 members $19 each.

“It was aggressive politics,” Weber said. “So was getting the initiative signed. Isn’t that what the country is built on? Anybody can propose anything, but they don’t have a right to do it unfettered.”

As Election Day nears, Ken Khachigian, consultant to the struggling Yes on 174 campaign, accuses opponents of operating a new blocking campaign, this one aimed at stopping the flow of money to the Proposition 174 campaign.

At the Orange County headquarters of the In-N-Out burgers chain, executives felt the potential wrath of opponents when The Times reported that the company gave $25,000 to Proposition 174.

A company official said several people identifying themselves as teachers called vowing to stop patronizing the hamburger chain. The executive tried to assuage them, noting that the donation was made in 1991 and that the company makes a point of donating to public schools where it does business.

Union officials deny that members threatened In-N-Out.

“We have had a fierce campaign going on, but no threats,” said Alice Huffman, CTA’s political strategist in Sacramento.

However, she added, “if they count on our business, I think it’s a good decision to not get involved. You wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

Prop. 174 Foes: A Look at Spending

The leading foes of the Proposition 174 school vouchers initiative have poured millions of dollars into the campaign to defeat it. They also spend large amounts on other political donations and lobbying in Sacramento.

California Teachers Assn. 230,000 members; 1 million including retirees. NO ON 174: $12.3 million POLITICAL DONATIONS 1991-92: $1.02 million LOBBYING Jan ‘92-June 1993: $3.7 million *

California School Employees Assn. Represents 170,000 secretaries, teachers aides, bus drivers, gardeners and other classified public school employees. NO ON 174: $1.3 million POLITICAL DONATIONS 1991-92: $184,567 LOBBYING Jan ‘92-June 1993: $1.2 million *

California Federation of Teachers. An AFL-CIO affiliate, the 40,000-teacher union has helped enlist trade union support to fight vouchers. NO ON 174: $1.1 million POLITICAL DONATIONS 1991-92: $334,000 LOBBYING Jan ‘92-June 1993: $384,000 *

Assn. of California School Administrators. Represents 14,000 school administrators, many of whom are volunteering in the campaign and speaking at local forums and debates. NO ON 174: $450,700 POLITICAL DONATIONS 1991-92: $412,000 LOBBYING Jan ‘92-June 1993: $658,000 *

California State Council of Service Employees. An AFL-CIO affiliate, the 350,000-member union represents 40,000 classified school employees. NO ON 174: $310,000 POLITICAL DONATIONS 1991-92: $1.47 million LOBBYING Jan ‘92-June 1993: $596,000 *

California School Boards Assn. Represents 950 public school districts, expects to raise $150,000 for the campaign. NO ON 174: $257,800 POLITICAL DONATIONS 1991-92: 0 LOBBYING Jan ‘92-June 1993: $802,000 OTHER OPPONENTS INCLUDE:

* California PTA, a nonprofit tax-exempt group with roughly 1 million members. Providing volunteers for the campaign, but no significant funding.

* Faculty Assn. of California Community Colleges, which expects cuts to community colleges if Proposition 174 passes, represents 6,500 community college teachers and has spent $25,000 to defeat Proposition 174.

* Committee to Protect the Political Rights of Minorities, a political action committee headed by Alice Huffman, who is CTA’s associate executive director and political strategist. It has given $312,700 to the No on 174 campaign.

OTHER SIGNIFICANT DONORS:

* California Casualty, an insurance company, $225,000.

* Delta Dental: $75,000

Sources: Secretary of State, California Common Cause, Interviews.