Indeed, Munger promptly began running her 31-second campaign ad — and it was a mild one. The most controversial moment of the colorful, childlike animation is a two-second depiction of money flowing from a schoolhouse into politicians' hands.
Brown's camp began pulling in serious favors to get Munger's ad yanked off the air. Munger soon heard from her key endorser, the California State PTA, asking her to pull the ad, and from her close political friend, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, who asked the same.
PHOTO BY NANETTE GONZALES
Jerry Brown's $6 billion to $8.5 billion tax measure has been hurt by his team's amateurish and self-inflicted mistakes.
PHOTO BY NANETTE GONZALES
Molly Munger and Steve English, at home in Pasadena: "We have a particular responsibility to give back," he says.
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Munger let the ad run for a week, getting widespread media coverage and sharing the one message Brown's team most feared — that the Legislature will get its hands on the governor's new tax revenue.
"The thing that concerns us most this year is that our schools are 47th in the nation [in funding, by some measures] and we have lost a third of our early-childhood education system," a defiant Munger says. "And it's really worrisome that we might have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix that, and that we wouldn't try to do it."
Outside the cavernous auditorium at Charles W. Eliot Middle School in Altadena, mothers huddle in groups of three or four, talking about their kids and waiting for Munger to arrive. Some wear "Yes on 38" buttons, but many of them plan to vote for both Proposition 30 and Proposition 38.
"We need more money at the schools," says Becky Thyre, whose daughter attends Eliot Middle School. "We need to turn everything around. The budget cuts are just ridiculous."
She adds, "I don't see why it has to be a choice between the two. We need at least one of them."
Barbara Pettit, another Eliot Middle School mom, says, "We just need to invest more in our schools. Education is a right, and should be available to all."
Both mothers say their friends are not talking about, and don't even know about, the two big tax measures on the Nov. 6 ballot.
Susan Schwartz, a parent activist and member of the Pasadena Education Network, worries, "If we fail our public schools, then we fail our middle class. If our middle class fails, we're on our way to being a Third World country."
At this auditorium, which can hold hundreds, 40 or 50 people show up. In a dark gray power suit, Munger takes the parents through a PowerPoint presentation. It could have been an incredibly boring affair, but Munger talks with an easy confidence and a practical intelligence that keeps the parents interested. She seems made to order to run for public office herself.
Volunteers hand out small pencils and slips of paper for the parents to write their questions. Munger, who seems to prefer informality, tries to wave them off. "I don't think we need to do all this," she says.
Several parents want to know if Munger's proposed tax revenues can be raided by the state Legislature. "If legislators start to play with Proposition 38, someone would be suing about it," Munger responds, then pauses for a beat. "And you're looking at her." The crowd erupts with claps and a few hearty laughs.
Under Munger's measure, people would pay 0.4 percent on taxable earnings of $7,600, equaling a few dollars per year in new taxes for very low earners. But it would rise to 2.2 percent for those with taxable earnings of more than $2.5 million. Munger estimates that those earning $1 million and up** would pay an average of $77,000; somebody earning $25,000 to $50,000 would pay $54 or so per year.
It seems strange to some that Proposition 38 isn't doing better. Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo says the "odds are not great" for Proposition 38 to pass, and even worse given that it needs to outdo Brown's ballot measure in total vote count to survive. UCLA dean Gilliam says if he were a betting man, he "wouldn't take Proposition 38 and the points. You'd have to give me 20 points. Literally."
One Democratic Party insider in L.A. who has worked with Munger says that she can be "difficult." Because of her wealth, he says, she's used to doing things her way, and becomes inflexible when asked to do otherwise. This could help explain why her measure is not connecting with voters, even though she has tapped a political brain trust, including Mellman, former California Teachers Association honcho John Hein, former Service Employees International Union boss Dean Tipps, veteran political strategist Nathan Ballard, political consultant Andrew Acosta and 2008 Obama pollster John Anzalone.
Gloria Romero, the hard-charging California director of Democrats for Education Reform, has not taken an official position on either tax measure. But the maverick Democrat, who openly criticizes teachers unions over hot-button issues such as the school districts' inability to remove bad teachers from classrooms, says Proposition 38 doesn't go far enough.
"Where is the bang for the buck?" asks Romero, who's glad Munger didn't back down to Brown but says, "There would be a greater appetite" for her tax if Munger had coupled it with serious classroom reforms.
Romero, of Los Angeles, was a powerhouse state senator as chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee. She believes Proposition 38 is "more honest" than Proposition 30 because it has a transparent school-funding plan. By contrast, she says Brown's measure is being sold largely as a way to beef up school funding when it's really about filling the budget hole.
