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Lessons from June 7th

Of the 45 Proposition 39 (55%) school bonds around the state, 40 were passed on election night.

That might be pretty devastating to those of us who were fighting these bonds tooth and nail for weeks.

It's not. I actually learned a lot -- about what works and about what doesn't work.

Lessons

1. Just getting an argument on the ballot is not enough.

While it's absolutely essential in order to have a chance at winning, an argument without any follow-up is highly unlikely to succeed in defeating a bond measure.

Of the 45 bonds, 21 (as far as I can determine) had arguments against filed. All but three of those arguments against were filed by taxpayer organizations who used the same basic argument with a little variation produced by some research.

2. Solo arguments don't fly.

A solo argument is one where there is only one signer. All of the arguments in favor had five signers.

Solo signers are easy to attack as the "only" person opposing the great measure.

I also learned that the advisors, who are writing the rebuttals, use the fact that a solo signer has filed arguments against in other places around the state.

If the local people were actually writing the rebuttals, they would have no idea of that fact, because only the people involved with a specific measure can see anything but their own measure's arguments until the 10-day review period begins after all argument deadlines have passed.

3. Charitable foundations spent hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This was news, because in effect it's a form of money laundering. A donor makes a donation to a college or school charity. The charity puts money into the Yes campaign. Money is fungible. You can't trace a dollar from the source to the destination.

Not all the data is in, but it appears that the college foundations were the main culprits. Three different colleges put in $150,000 or more each to their Yes campaigns. One of them even failed to get its measure passed.

4. Local opposition must be found before arguments are filed.

This is a corollary to #1.

In order to get the five signers, they have to be identified before the argument filing deadline.

These people will be the natural opposition campaign, or at least the seed of it.

The challenge is finding them quickly.

The solution is starting the search now.