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Review of Prop. 227 Campaign
Spending
Yes on 227 was outspent by
a ratio of nearly 20 to 1 in advertising
The Yes on 227 ("English for the Children") campaign committee
was established in May 1997, and raised and spent nearly $900,000 through
the end of 1997. The bulk of these funds were spent on gathering the nearly
800,000 signatures required to qualify Proposition 227 for the ballot. The
cost of this qualification campaign was quite low by initiative standards
(for example, during 1998, a group spent $3.5 million to qualify an initiative
expanding the availability of Charter Schools in California). All this financial
information is based on official campaign spending reports filed with the
California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC).
Following qualification of Proposition 227, the Yes on 227 campaign raised
and spent an additional $350,000 from Jan 1, 1998 through the June 2 election,
of which approximately $200,000 was spent on advertising and voter contact
activities.
By contrast, the main No on 227 campaign committee, which was formed late
in 1997, raised and spent approximately $4.4 million from Jan 1, 1998 to
June 2, 1998, of which approximately $3.9 million was spent on advertising
and voter contact. In addition, two smaller No on 227 committees together
raised and spent some $50,000 over those same months.
Thus, during the five months leading up to the June 2nd election, the
No on 227 campaign outspent the Yes on 227 campaign by a overall ratio of
more than 12 to 1, and by a ratio of nearly 20 to 1 in advertising.
Furthermore, A. Jerrold Perenchio, the Republican billionaire who funded
much of the No on 227 campaign, also provided large quantities of free air
time on his Univision television network to broadcast No on 227 editorials,
with no equal time provided for Yes on 227 opposing views. Although estimating
the actual value of this unreported in-kind contribution is difficult, the
Los Angeles Times (5/22/98) reported that these 60 second editorials
were running four times daily on each Univision station during the three
weeks prior to the election. Depending on the times these editorials ran,
the value of this air-time would be over $50,000 per day on KMEX-TV in Los
Angeles, and perhaps another $25,000 for the other Univision stations in
California, representing an additional in-kind advertising contribution
of $1 to 2 million to the No on 227 campaign.
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