Voucher Backers Say Foe Tried to Sell Endorsement

SACRAMENTO —  Backers of the November school voucher initiative released a letter Wednesday that they say shows that one of their initiative’s most prominent opponents had shopped around its endorsement.

The letter to Silicon Valley businessman Timothy C. Draper, the man who launched Proposition 38, was written by Bill Lord-Butcher, a political consultant hired by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. The group announced this week that it is opposing Draper’s initiative because it fears the measure could be bad for taxpayers.

Named for the late anti-tax crusader, the group claims a membership of 400,000.

In the letter to Draper, Lord-Butcher states he is a consultant to the Howard Jarvis group and that, “In this roll [sic] I have approached both the Yes and No sides of the Proposition 38 campaign to learn what level of interest exists in participating in the mailing program described herein. Both campaigns have expressed a strong interest in participating.”

The July 11 letter goes on to detail the group’s plans for a four-piece direct mail program. The letter says there would be a two-part payment schedule amounting to $850,000, if Draper were to win the Jarvis group’s endorsement and decide to participate in the mail program.

Chris Bertelli, a spokesman for the School Vouchers 2000 Campaign, said his organization did not reply to the letter. “We don’t buy endorsements,” Bertelli said.

Lord-Butcher denied that he was shopping around the Jarvis group’s endorsement, charging instead that Draper’s campaign tried to buy the tax group’s support by offering to spend more than $850,000 if necessary.

“I think it’s absurd for them to pull that letter out after they attempted to bribe the Jarvis organization,” Lord-Butcher said. “Shame on them.”

Bertelli brushed the bribery accusation off as nonsense and posed the question: “Does he have a letter from us saying we want to buy their endorsement?”

Jarvis Executive Director Kris Vosburgh also weighed in, saying his organization had never shopped its endorsement. He suggested that the voucher campaign is suffering from a case of sour grapes for failing to win his group’s support.

“They feel they have to make excuses and spend energy attacking us,” Vosburgh said.

Jon Lenzner, a spokesman for the group opposing the voucher initiative, said Wednesday that there was never any payment or promise of payment for an endorsement from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.

Since receiving the Jarvis endorsement, however, Lenzner said his campaign has entered negotiations with a slate mailer vendor to decide “what we’re going to do in the future to get our message out to [Jarvis’] membership.”

The school voucher initiative would give parents the option of using $4,000 in state money each year for tuition at a private school. The measure would also eliminate a school financing formula that dedicates 40% of the state’s general fund to public education.

Depending on how many students switch schools, the vouchers in the long run could either cost the state more than $500 million a year or save it up to $2.5 billion, a review by the state Department of Finance and the legislative analyst concluded.

Draper, who has vowed to spend $20 million of his own money to pass the measure, has stated that he is driven by a desire to ensure that every child has access to a quality education regardless of their economic standing.

But his efforts face stiff opposition from Gov. Gray Davis, a vocal opponent of the voucher program, who has vowed to write letters and or film commercials to defeat the initiative.