Not on purpose, of course, but the mailer they recently sent Mrs. X does more to prove the need for Proposition 75 than the Prop 75 supporters themselves ever could. The outside of the mailer reads:

It’s Time to Take a Closer Look…

…at 5 initiatives on the Special Election Ballot

Five initiatives? Five? I thought there were only two initiatives on the ballot having anything to do with CSEA. Prop 74 goes after bad teachers, so it’s little surprise the bad teachers union opposes it, but CSEA doesn’t represent teachers, only other school employees who have to deal with them. That leaves 75 and 76, the paycheck protection and balanced budget initiatives. Of course, if they really supported their members’ rights, they’d support Prop 75, too, but seeing as that initiative goes after the union’s own abuses, that’s probably a bit too much to ask for. What on earth are the other two? Answer inside:

And when you do … it’s pretty easy to ….

Just say “NO” in November

PROPOSITIONS 74, 75, 76, 77 & 78 are unfair, unnecessary “power grabs” that will slash funding for our schools, punish our teachers, hurt consumers and give the governor and all future governors unlimited power. The governor and his corporate donors want to silence the voices of classified employees and our union when we speak out on issues like contracting out, pensions and school funding. We can’t let that happen…

First of all, my hat’s off to CSEA for putting the sneer quotes where they belong, thereby saving me the trouble of having to add them myself. Well, I guess the words “unfair,” “unnecessary,” “slash,” “punish,” “hurt,” “unlimited,” “corporate,” “silence,” “voices” and “can’t” could use them, too, but at least it’s a start. In any event, if you’re like me you’re probably asking yourself on what planet a five-year tenure track for a given profession is considered a “punishment” even though few other professions offer tenure after any period of service, and the few that do (e.g., college professors) take much longer than that. Or perhaps you’re wondering how a law requiring unions to obtain their members’ consent before spending their coerced “donations” on wacky mailers like this one punishes anybody other than union hacks themselves, why a balanced budget law should be considered an affront to education in particular, how a democratically elected Legislature would “hurt consumers,” or why a school employee union would care about Proposition 78. Well, here are their answers, such as they are (PDF links to initiatives added):

PROPOSITION 74 - Punishes our Teachers
The initiative unfairly takes away an incompetent first or second year teacher’s right, shared by almost no other profession on the planet to a hearing before they are fired for incompetence. This initiative is nothing more than political pay back [sic] by the Governor and his corporate friends who, if they had their druthers, would probably opt for a work force trained by competent teachers than have to retrain a work force that made it through K-12 while remaining illiterate. It’s the first in a series of “power grabs” Editor’s note: shouldn’t we remove those quotes? I thought we were trying to argue that they really are power grabs, not to mock those who do. Whatever. by the Governator designed to punish incompetent teachers who currently punish students and taxpayers for speaking out against the Governor’s failure to adequately fund Editor’s note: so I used a split infinitive! Sue me. I represent classifyed skule wurkers, not teechurs. our schools by breaking his nonexistent promise to the hack unions who never supported him in the first place, and who pretend to speak for our children.

For our chronicly mediocre schools … we must say NO!

Note the time frame here: first the Governor pushes an initiative to make it easier to fire incompetent teachers, then the union hacks run a bunch of dishonest ads while pretending to speak for all teachers, and incompetent ones in particular. Now the CSEA argues that the governor pushed the initiative to punish them for the fact they were going to speak out against it later. O-kay.

PROPOSITION 75 - Silences our Coerced Voices

This “power grab” [sic, I swear I'm not the one adding all these sneer quotes - X] by the Governor and his corporate big-wigs is preemptive payback to public employee unions so they can’t steal everyone’s money to pay for political ads only a bare majority of the workers support on a good day in order to fight back to protect our lock on power, not to mention our grossly overpaid pensions, our school monopolies, and our unearned, taxpayer-proof, merit-proof, everything-else-proof jobs. First CSEA fought the governor on saving taxpayers some money contracting out - and the game was rigged in our favor, so of course we won. Next we said NO to his pension privatization scheme, which, if adopted, might have actually helped to bring California’s budget into line. Now he wants to prevent our voices from being heard at about twice their actual decibels, by forcing 100% of us to “speak” to an issue only 51% of us even tacitly support.

For our monopoly on schools and our bloated, unsustainable pensions … we must say NO!

PROPOSITION 76 - Slashes Automatic Increases In Spending Mandates, Including But Not Limited To School Funding

Prop. 76 is another “power grab” OK, I give up. by the Governor which will allow him to sign laws cut funding for schools, socialized health care, and other bloated government services most non-government employees would like to see cut. Oh, crap, no one’s going to buy this. I know, let’s throw something out that will never get cut but whose very mention will get people hopping mad: police and fire protection. By taking the matter to the people, the one branch of government the unions will never own, It takes away the checks and balances of government employee unions, which currently are allowed to “check and balance” all three branches of the state government and lets the governor together with the voters permanently, or at least until we con credulous voters into passing another Prop. 98, reduce school funding by eliminating Prop. 98 mandates that force the state to spend money it doesn’t have while offering taxpayers no protections whatsoever.

For our future ability to milk a mediocre economy for more than it’s worth… we must say NO!

PROPOSITION 77 - Democracy Sure Is A Waste of Time and Money

Prop 7 is a “power grab by Big Business Dude, I let you get away with the sneer quotes, but what’s up with capitalizing “big” and “business?” Is there actually a company by that name? I’d like to buy some stock in that company; the trademark alone has got to be worth billions. and the Governor to take away our rights as the only people the allegedly “elected” Legislature is really accountable to, seeing as they get to choose their own voters and put them in the hands of judges who have no known or suspected political ambitions, and who are appointed by democratically elected politicians from non-gerrymandered districts. Prop. 77 costs taxpayers jack shit, not that we care about saving taxpayers money, anyway and tramples on our rights to have the only .. um … I mean, “a“ say in who represents us or even whether anyone will represent us rather than the constituents they pretend to represent now.

For appropriately rigged … err… I mean, “fair“ elections … we must say NO!

PROPOSITION 78 - Phony Prescription Drug Reform
Prop 78 is a smokescreen by the big drug companies that won’t guarantee one single person in California cheaper prescription drugs. They want to fool California voters into thinking this is real reform.

It isn’t remotely relevant to any issue we are paid to represent government school workers over, but no matter, just … say NO!

UPDATE: The original version of this post overlooked an obvious point about Prop 76: of course the educrat lobby opposes balanced budgets. This here town ain’t big enough for Prop 98 and balanced budgets. Thanks to commenter Aphrael for pointing out what should have been obvious.