In a move that could shake up U.S. politics, the California Nurses Association (CNA) single handedly gathered enough signatures to put an initiative on California’s November ballot to establish full public financing of election campaigns.

In an interview at the Take Back America conference in D.C., CNA activist Shawn Preston explained that the independent union’s leaders decided to fight for the idea after California unionists—the nurses, AFSCME, teachers, fire fighters and others—fought off Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s anti-worker initiatives last year.

One of the referendum ideas, which Schwarzeneger later dropped, would have rolled back mandatory nurse-patient ratios in the state’s hospitals enacted under his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.

Schwarzenegger tried to delay the mandates by executive order, too, but was forced to back down under pressure from CNA demonstrations all over the state dogging him at fundraisers and appearances, and a mass protest and letter-writing campaign.

Another initiative on the 2005 special election ballot would have cut the cost of prescription drugs for California’s seniors.

“The pharmaceutical industry spent $83 million to stop that,” Preston said. “As long as that kind of money comes flooding into the political system, nurses and patients will suffer.”

Schwarzenegger’s moves against teacher tenure, worker pensions and for paycheck protection and the flow of big business campaign cash behind them were all defeated after the labor movement poured its resources and energies into the campaign. This led  CNA to conclude that its cause and others could not be advanced without campaign finance reform first, Preston added.

The move is particularly important because California is the largest state in the U.S. and easily the most-expensive to campaign in. Recent statewide election campaigns there cost $30 million or more per candidate. Two smaller states, Arizona and Maine, have public financing of elections.

And the money that businesses spent—and Schwarzenegger raised everywhere from San Francisco to Boston—for his ballot schemes also ran into millions of dollars.
That fundraising left unions and their allies always outspent.

CNA was successful because its volunteers were accompanied by uniformed nurses as they took the petitions around, and the nurses had credibility with the voters.

“They (the nurses) are very much into this because they’re committed to health care reform because of the depressing and awful system right now,” Preston said.

—PAI