Advertisement Supports Public Financing Measure
The campaign in favor of Proposition 89 on Monday began airing a television advertisement in major markets statewide, the Sacramento Bee reports. At a cost of about $2 million, the ad will run on cable and broadcast channels through Nov. 7 (Sanders, Sacramento Bee, 10/24).
Proposition 89 would increase state income taxes on corporations and financial institutions to fund candidate campaigns and restrict contributions from corporations to candidates, political committees and ballot measure campaigns.
The California Nurses Association authored the initiative (California Healthline, 10/17).
The ad features images from political ads labeled, "HMOs," "Tobacco" or "Big Oil" and "an assembly line of glum voters" being "slammed on the head and pounded to the ground by a giant piston, depicting heavy-handed politics," the Bee reports.
The ad states that political advertisements in California are a strategy "to keep pounding [voters] with lies, distortions and half-truths" as part of an effort to convince voters "of their lies" or to decide not to vote. According to the ad, voters "can stop [the practice] with one hand" by voting in favor of Proposition 89.
The Bee analysis says that Proposition 89 would not end "lies, distortions and half-truths" in political ads because the measure does not address the content of political advertising and instead is intended to "curtail the quantity of ads" by restricting contributions from some groups. In addition, the analysis states that the measure would not regulate how campaign funds are spent (Sacramento Bee, 10/24).
KPCC's "Patt Morrison" on Monday included a discussion on Proposition 89. Guests on the program included Sandy Harrison from the campaign opposing the measure and Susan Lerner, executive director of the California Clean Money Action Fund (Stoltze, "Patt Morrison," KPCC, 10/23).
The complete segment is available online in RealPlayer.