Teachers union’s fight against Senate leader spills over to billboards, mailboxes

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Earlier this week, the California Teachers Assn. placed least two billboards ads in Sacramento aimed at Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). The association followed those ads with mailers sent to voters in Steinberg’s Sacramento district that urges him to protect education funding.

‘No more cuts to our public schools in this year’s state budget,’ the mailer reads. ‘Please stop the devastating cuts that have increased class size, shut down school libraries and eliminated art, music and technical training classes.’

Steinberg said he was contacted by union leaders last week and told that the billboards and mailers were coming. In an e-mail sent to his Democratic Senate colleagues, Steinberg wrote that CTA’s Joe Nunez said ‘I have not been sufficiently supportive’ of the association’s efforts to deal with education cuts and secure federal funding for poor schools.

‘Given all our caucus has done to protect Proposition 98, the repayment of the $2.5-billion maintenance factor in the midyear budget and last July, and our support of Proposition 1B last year, I can only conclude that their action has more to do with their own reelections and jobs than mine or yours. The fiscal crisis is obviously taking a toll on everyone.’

-- Anthony York in Sacramento