Initiative Crunch Time, Money Keeps Flowing
The Secretary of State's office has said that the 17 days between yesterday and May 6th are when backers of any initiative will have to submit their signatures, if they hope to make a special election ballot.
And if the money being collected is any indication, no one seems willing to wait for a special election to officially be called.
The governor's allies, Citizens To Save California (CSC), have raised almost $6 million so far. It seems like a sizeable amount, although CSC co-chair Joel Fox told reporters back on March 16th that the goal for the signature-gathering phase was $10 million.
Meantime, the two groups that have lined up to fight the governor's reform ideas are also raising big bucks. The Alliance For A Better California (ABC) has raised about $5 million so far, with more than $1.7 million of that amount in just the last 10 days. The biggest single donor to ABC's efforts to date is the California Teachers Association, which has chipped in a little more than $1.6 million. And the other group, Seriously Saving California, has raised about $5 million... with many of the same donors, as well as groups like the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
By the way, one piece of political information is being played pretty close to the chest: almost no one wants to publicly confirm how many signatures they've actually gathered so far on any of the initiatives.
And this morning at an event celebrating Earth Day (later this week), Governor Schwarzenegger said there are productive dicusssions going on at the Capitol that could keep the special election from happening at all.
