Bicker, Castillo & Fairbanks : Case Studies : No on Proposition 82

No On 82 In December 2005, BCF was retained to help defeat Prop. 82. Prop. 82 sought to provide universal access to preschool for all four-year-olds in California. The new $2.4 billion per year preschool bureaucracy would have been funded by a new personal income tax on wealthy Californians. The most public proponent was actor/director Rob Reiner.

While six months is normally ample time to wage an effective campaign, proponents of Prop. 82 had been building support for "pre-school for all" and their initiative for several years - giving them a huge advantage in terms of public perception and third party support. Initial public opinion research suggested widespread support for "free pre-school" for all children, funded only by the wealthy.

But good concepts don't always result in good policy and Prop. 82 was riddled with flaws. BCF quickly set about re-framing the debate, educating third party allies, the media and ultimately the voters about the flaws of Prop. 82. While initial research showed that majorities of voters supported a tax on the wealthy to pay for pre-school, ultimately more than 60 percent of voters rejected Prop. 82 on election day.

Reframing the Debate
Central to our success was ensuring voters understood that Prop. 82 was not a vote on whether or not to make pre-school available to more kids, but whether or not Prop. 82 was the right approach. Our challenge was to clearly differentiate between preschool as a concept and Prop. 82 as public policy. We ran a tightly-coordinated message campaign focusing on the following points:

Fixing K-12 education should come first.
We should first target limited funds to increase preschool access for those children most in need (something Prop. 82 failed to do).
Prop. 82 takes a preschool system that’s working well, and replaces it with a state-run preschool bureaucracy modeled after the failures of our troubled K-12 system.

Grassroots
When we initially got involved, the Yes on 82 folks had already established a broad coalition in support of the measure, due largely to the fact that they had a year head-start to frame the issue on emotional terms, with minimal public policy scrutiny. Once BCF got engaged and began educating groups about specifics of Prop. 82, we were able to literally freeze future endorsements and build a broad-based coalition in opposition to the measure in just a few months. In all, more than 300 organizations representing preschool providers, chambers, ethnic groups, taxpayer groups and others opposed the measure. Even several high-profile education organizations that long supported the concept of universal preschool refused to support the measure. Groups like the California State PTA, California School Boards Association and even the League of Women Voters of California refused to endorse Prop 82.

And our coalition partners were not just names on a list - these organizations got involved in all aspects of the campaign including grassroots voter education, speakers' bureau, "netroots" campaigns utilizing email trees and electronic newsletter articles, participating in voter information forums, and participating in press conferences and interviews.

The No on Prop. 82 campaign waged an extremely successful media strategy that included press briefings, radio and TV interviews and editorial board meetings. Though proponents attempted to frame the earned media coverage to highlight the benefits of preschool in general, BCF worked aggressively to focus press coverage on the specifics (and flaws) of Proposition 82. . In the end, 45 newspapers editorialized against the measure, including almost every major daily newspaper, including:

Los Angeles Times
San Francisco Chronicle
Sacramento Bee
San Diego Union Tribune
Fresno Bee
Bakersfield Californian
Riverside Press Enterprise

On June 6, 2006, voters overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 82 by a 20 point margin (60.9% of the voters opposed while only 39.1% were in support) – virtually a complete reversal from voters initial sentiments before the No on Prop. 82 campaign launched. While voters may support the benefits of preschool, they ultimately decided that Proposition 82 was the wrong approach for expanding preschool opportunities for our children.



	In December 2005, BCF was retained to help defeat Prop. 82. Prop. 82 sought to provide universal access to preschool for all four-year-olds in California. The new $2.4 billion per year preschool bureaucracy would have been funded by a new personal income tax on wealthy Californians. The most public proponent was actor/director Rob Reiner. While six months is normally ample time to wage an effective campaign, proponents of Prop. 82 had been building support for "pre-school for all" and their initiative for several years - giving them a huge advantage in terms of public perception and third party support. Initial public opinion research suggested widespread support for "free pre-school" for all children, funded only by the wealthy. But good concepts don't always result in good policy and Prop. 82 was riddled with flaws. BCF quickly set about re-framing the debate, educating third party allies, the media and ultimately the voters about the flaws of Prop. 82. While initial research showed that majorities of voters supported a tax on the wealthy to pay for pre-school, ultimately more than 60 percent of voters rejected Prop. 82 on election day. Reframing the Debate Central to our success was ensuring voters understood that Prop. 82 was not a vote on whether or not to make pre-school available to more kids, but whether or not Prop. 82 was the right approach. Our challenge was to clearly differentiate between preschool as a concept and Prop. 82 as public policy. We ran a tightly-coordinated message campaign focusing on the following points: Fixing K-12 education should come first. We should first target limited funds to increase preschool access for those children most in need (something Prop. 82 failed to do). Prop. 82 takes a preschool system that’s working well, and replaces it with a state-run preschool bureaucracy modeled after the failures of our troubled K-12 system. Grassroots When we initially got involved, the Yes on 82 folks had already established a broad coalition in support of the measure, due largely to the fact that they had a year head-start to frame the issue on emotional terms, with minimal public policy scrutiny. Once BCF got engaged and began educating groups about specifics of Prop. 82, we were able to literally freeze future endorsements and build a broad-based coalition in opposition to the measure in just a few months. In all, more than 300 organizations representing preschool providers, chambers, ethnic groups, taxpayer groups and others opposed the measure. Even several high-profile education organizations that long supported the concept of universal preschool refused to support the measure. Groups like the California State PTA, California School Boards Association and even the League of Women Voters of California refused to endorse Prop 82. And our coalition partners were not just names on a list - these organizations got involved in all aspects of the campaign including grassroots voter education, speakers' bureau, "netroots" campaigns utilizing email trees and electronic newsletter articles, participating in voter information forums, and participating in press conferences and interviews. The No on Prop. 82 campaign waged an extremely successful media strategy that included press briefings, radio and TV interviews and editorial board meetings. Though proponents attempted to frame the earned media coverage to highlight the benefits of preschool in general, BCF worked aggressively to focus press coverage on the specifics (and flaws) of Proposition 82. . In the end, 45 newspapers editorialized against the measure, including almost every major daily newspaper, including: Los Angeles Times San Francisco Chronicle Sacramento Bee San Diego Union Tribune Fresno Bee Bakersfield Californian Riverside Press Enterprise On June 6, 2006, voters overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 82 by a 20 point margin (60.9% of the voters opposed while only 39.1% were in support) – virtually a complete reversal from voters initial sentiments before the No on Prop. 82 campaign launched. While voters may support the benefits of preschool, they ultimately decided that Proposition 82 was the wrong approach for expanding preschool opportunities for our children.