Tim Holt | SF Gate
Sunday, December 20, 2009
An earlier generation of college students took on the Vietnam War. Now a new generation is poised to take on the mess in Sacramento.
This Christmas break, students from University of California and state and community college campuses will fan out across the state to collect signatures in support of an initiative that would free the Legislature from its two-thirds vote requirement on budget and revenue matters. Their goal is to collect enough signatures by April 15 to qualify for the November 2010 ballot.
Amid a welter of sit-ins, teach-ins and building takeovers, this is a bold effort to reach beyond the campuses and address the chronic problems of a dysfunctional Legislature and the state's fiscal crisis. If it passes, the California Democracy Act will allow a simple majority in the Legislature to pass a budget and balance it if necessary with new revenue sources.
The effort no doubt will be greeted with a great deal of cynicism. But, really, who better than a bunch of raw, politically inexperienced students to tackle the mess in Sacramento? Who else has the sense of urgency, the bulletproof optimism, needed for such an undertaking?
The initiative was written by Berkeley linguistics Professor George Lakoff, and its frontline troops are those directly affected by the state's budget mess: students whose futures and careers are being compromised by a 32 percent fee increase over the next year and a half and by scaled-back course offerings, the result of decades of erosion in state support for higher education.
At this early stage, the student effort is moving in several directions. In addition to the Lakoff initiative, support is growing on campuses for a bill by Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, that would raise new revenue for the state's universities and colleges by taxing oil companies for every barrel of oil they produce in California. Efforts to reform Proposition 13 also have campus support.
In early March, college students from all over the state will march on Sacramento to dramatize the need for greater public support for higher education.
Earlier generations of California college students not only helped put an end to an unnecessary war in Southeast Asia but traveled to the American South to aid the civil rights movement. It remains to be seen whether this new generation of students can have any real impact on public policy. It won't be easy. No one has yet figured out how to turn widespread public disgust with a dysfunctional state government into positive reform, but the Lakoff initiative, with its small army of motivated students, could be a step in that direction.
UCLA undergraduate Chris Ah San is one of those recruiting student signature-gatherers. To do that, he has tapped into a statewide network of student associations, Students for California's Future, set up by an aide to former Lt. Gov. John Garamendi to build support for public education. A spin-off organization on the Berkeley campus, Restore the Majority, is putting out videos on YouTube touting the Lakoff initiative.
The effort to clean up the mess in Sacramento will involve a lot of retail politics - outreach to alumni groups, speeches before Rotary clubs - as students tell their own story, how their lives are being harmed by the erosion of publicly funded higher education. To pass the Lakoff initiative, students will have to quickly school themselves in the intricacies of a political campaign and tap into a bewildering array of media outlets.
Prop. 13, passed by voters in 1978, was a big victory for those who aimed not only to trim property taxes but to hamstring government. Among its provisions was the requirement for a two-thirds vote by the Legislature to increase taxes.
Imagine this: A movement that started with a core constituency of seniors faced with soaring property taxes and the possible loss of their homes comes smack dab against a new generation of college students who refuse to have their careers and futures compromised by a government in shackles.
The unraveling of the Master Plan
1960: The California Master Plan for Higher Education, guaranteeing qualified California residents a tuition-free education in the state's public universities and colleges, is approved by the Legislature, Gov. Pat Brown and the UC regents.
UC student fees:
$147*
1978: Proposition 13 is approved by the state's voters. It severely limits future property tax increases and requires a two-thirds vote by the Legislature to increase state taxes.
UC student fees:
$720
1994: UC regents, in a major departure from the Master Plan, decide that student fees may be applied generally to the university's operating budget.
UC student fees:
$4,111
2004: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, UC President Robert Dynes and CSU Chancellor Charles Reed sign a Higher Education Compact that includes promises by Dynes and Reed to increase revenue from private sources, including student fees, in exchange for guaranteed increases in state government funding from 2006-11.
UC student fees:
$6,230
2005: Spending per UC student from state general fund: $9,580
UC student fees:
$6,802
2009: Spending per UC student from state general fund: $7,730
UC student fees:
$9,896
2010: UC student fees:
$11,287
* UC fee calculation based on fulltime load of 15 units per semester
Source: Office of the President of the University of California
Tim Holt (UC Berkeley '71) writes frequently for The Chronicle on education and other matters. To comment, submit a letter through our online form at sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1.
This article appeared on page D - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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