With Rep. Darrell Issa opening his wallet and his network of donors to the Electoral College measure and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner dropping $1.5 million of his own money to defeat Proposition 93, it seems like wealthy Republicans willing to fund ballot drives are a dime a dozen.
Not so much for the Capitol Resource Institute, the conservative Christian group that is trying to launch a referendum on recently passed anti-discrimination legislation for gay and lesbian students.
“The Save Our Kids campaign is running out of money,” Karen England, executive director of the group, pleaded to supporters in an e-mail late Wednesday. “We cannot print or mail any more petitions without financial support.”
England filed the referendum after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 777, authored by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica. The legislation puts into law that there cannot be discrimination in schools based upon sexual orientation.
But England and proponents of the referendum see a secret agenda in the bill because teachers won’t be allowed to “promote a discriminatory bias," meaning, according to England, no talking about heterosexual couples.
That’s criticism Kuehl, the governor and supporters of the bill have dismissed.
“This is the worst bill any governor has signed,” England says.
But she and the Capitol Resource Institute are running out of both time – and money – to qualify the referendum.
Of all the different types of ballot measures in California, referendums are the hardest to place before voters. Opponents of a law new have only 90 days to collect 433,971 valid signatures – a costly venture.
And, as England put it in the plea to supporters, “The campaign is in dire need of money.” So far they’ve mailed out 50,000 petitions to “concerned citizens throughout California,” paid for with preliminary donations.
They say they’ve ordered more petitions on the hopes that donors come through.
Jim Carroll, managing director at Equality California, a gay-rights advocacy group, said he remained concerned about the referendum.
“It just takes one major donor to make a large contribution to reignite a campaign, so we have to maintain our vigilance,” he said. “It sounds like a fundraising tactic.”
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