Today we get the exciting news that this special election, which a vast majority of Californians do not want, is shaping up to be most expensive ballot fight in California history.
Employee unions may get most of the attention, with headlines like “Unions Spending Lavishly,” as in this L.A. Times piece. But let us not forget that the giant pharmeceutical companies have already raked in $88 million to push one bogus measure, versus the unions which are fending off a broad and direct attack on their very livelihoods, not to mention the public interest they are fighting to protect.
Corporations are still the big spenders nationally, outdoing unions by a factor of 24-1. It’s a testament to the strength of the public interest in California that labor can outpace the King of Fundraising himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger.