COSTA MESA, Calif. City council elections in this Southern California city are usually sedate. Hot-button issues include whether libraries should stay open at night. Campaign budgets often dont top $10,000.
Then Jim Righeimer, a conservative activist and real estate developer, jumped into the race last year.
The city was on the road to insolvency, he warned, because public employee unions had pressured politicians into handing over generous salaries and pensions. The police chief received $298,000 a year in total compensation, Mr. Righeimer noted. The deputy fire chief had retired with a pension of more than $182,000 a year.
City workers werent fans of Mr. Righeimer, who had been critical of public unions for years. Local police and firefighter groups started mailing leaflets and towing a billboard around town attacking him, implying he had skipped out on numerous debts. Public employees spent more than $100,000 opposing him, and six unions from neighboring regions spent another $33,000 endorsing his opponents.
They try to drag you through the mud so bad that everyone else says, I dont ever want these guys as enemies, Ill just leave them alone, said Mr. Righeimer, who still managed to win a council seat.
Costa Mesa, population 110,000, is California in miniature. For years, public employee unions across the state have often used their influence sometimes behind the scenes but occasionally with public, hardball campaigns to push for improved worker pay and benefits. They have exercised power beyond their numbers by donating money to lawmakers, burnishing candidates credentials with endorsements and supplying volunteers during elections.
Public employee unions are hardly the only group involved in bare-knuckles politics. Businesses lobby fiercely and executives make hefty campaign donations.
But public workers have a unique relationship with elected officials, because government employees are effectively negotiating with bosses whom they can campaign to vote out of office if they dont get what they want. Private unions, in contrast, dont usually have the power to fire their members employers.
Even in recent years, as economic troubles have worsened, benefits for some government workers have grown. In 2008, for instance, lifeguards in Laguna Beach started receiving increased retirement benefits as the states economy began to slow. The next year, the towns chief lifeguard retired at age 57, with a $113,000-a-year pension after 36 years on the job....
