11 Things I've Learned Running Over 100 Bond and Tax Measure Campaigns in California

By Bill Berry
William Berry Campaigns

School districts, community colleges, cities and special districts are placing dozens and dozens of local funding measures on upcoming ballots.

With that in mind, I put together a list of small but critical things that I have learned by experience, trial and error.

1. Never trust the numbers your phone bankers report. Voters can say ‘yes’ when asked if they support the measure because they think it's the quickest way off the phone.

Every time a phone banker predicts a landslide my heart sinks.

2. With most voters, the battle is to get them to support the first nickel of the bond or tax measure. If you can convince them to support a measure for a nickel, fifty million dollars really is just a step away.

3. Of the top thousand reasons to support the bond measure, none of them concerns money. Lay out the financial specifics of the measure in black and white and make it available to all who asks - but spend your time and resources telling stories of how your bond or tax measure directly leads to student success or less traffic or modern career training.

4. There are a lot more payphones, per capita, in the Central Valley than the rest of the State.

5. You can try and convince a voter to support a measure. You can try and convince a voter to vote. You can't do both with the same voter.

6. Contrary to how I felt in college, one can have too much pizza.

7. In most of our bond and tax elections, how women between the ages of 50 and 65 vote decides if we win or lose.

8. In nearly all of our tax measures needing a super-majority for passage, the voter turnout of Democratic and Independent women under the age of 45 decides if the measures wins or loses.

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