Game of the Name Is Profit

Across California these days, the front lines of democracy run past the nearest big-box store, where political capitalists beg for voters’ signatures and money often talks louder than ideas.

Outside these busy retail centers, the nomadic men and women who collect signatures for proposed initiatives dispense political advice authoritatively, endure shouting matches and curses from opponents, and occasionally cajole voters into supporting ideas they know little about.

With time running out, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Democrats, unions and consumer groups are rushing to collect enough signatures to qualify their competing initiatives for a possible 2005 special election. More than a dozen are being hawked every day in front of Wal-Marts, Home Depots, grocery stories and the like.

Not surprisingly, the per-signature price that each worker can earn encourages them to tout some initiatives over others. Schwarzenegger is aggressively pushing an initiative to curb government spending -- so his political organization pays $2 a signature. His initiative to pay teachers based on merit garners only $1 a signature -- enough, the governor’s aides said, to collect what they need in time.

The unusual political season that has been spurred by Schwarzenegger’s drive to “reform” parts of California government means that people such as John Phea, who normally sells newspapers, can make more money at the entrance of the Torrance Home Depot gathering signatures for nine different initiatives.

“Some people say, ‘I’ll just sign everything and get more information later,’ ” said Phea, 32, who often plays the roles of political consultant, salesman, philosopher or soother of nerves as he collects as many as 300 signatures a day.

Schwarzenegger unveiled his political agenda in January and said he might call a special election. Since then, backers of 70 initiatives have been given permission to collect hundreds of thousands of valid signatures to qualify their initiatives for the ballot. Only four of the 70 are supported by the governor.

On the street, petition gatherers have one ambition: to make money.

Some, wearing white hats, have been collecting signatures for Democratic initiatives, including one that allows people to return used cars if they change their minds about a purchase. But at grocery stores in Ventura and Hawthorne, The Times witnessed the same people promoting Schwarzenegger initiatives as well. They also wore white hats.

Other petition-gatherers have offered competing initiatives that would lower prescription drug prices. But they did not tell voters that drug companies are promoting one and that consumer advocates are promoting the other. Both “lower drug costs,” the petition gatherers have said.

In the last few weeks, the political atmosphere has been so heated that store customers have verbally abused some petition workers.

The merit pay issue still draws hisses from teachers. But the most controversial was Schwarzenegger’s initiative to move public employees and teachers into 401(k)-type pension plans. He dropped that idea two weeks ago.

“They gave us a hard time on pensions until they shut it down. We got yelled at, flipped off and cussed out,” said Gary Thompson, who coordinates 72 petition workers in the South Bay. “I told my people you don’t need to get abused out in the field.”

Although he wasn’t rude or abusive, Stu Green walked up to Phea’s folding table at the Torrance Home Depot on Sunday and asked why Phea was promoting the “car buyers’ bill of rights” without offering an alternative that would curb trial lawyers. (An initiative to curb trial lawyer “abuses” was recently dropped.)

Green, who owns a car dealership in Torrance and lives in Beverly Hills, said trial lawyers were running abusive initiatives. He said the system was set up to favor one side. Disgusted, he left Phea’s table and didn’t sign anything.

“People are morons. They are like lemmings,” said Green, complaining that people may react viscerally to used car dealers without looking at the fine print. “You need to let the people decide on issues, but you need to give people a fair shot. You can’t just have somebody sitting at a table who wants you to sign one way.”

Phea offered this advice to Green: “You should get people together and put it on a petition.”

Petition gatherers often put the highest-paying initiatives atop the pile. Phea said he puts up whatever interests him, or whatever sells in that neighborhood.

“If you go to South-Central,” Phea said, “prescription drugs are going to be the No. 1 issue. Commercial property taxes, they probably wouldn’t care.”

Schwarzenegger is pushing multiple initiatives, directly and indirectly. He wants merit pay for teachers and stricter tenure requirements for teachers in public schools. He wants spending restrictions on the state budget and an independent panel to redraw legislative districts.

“A lot of times people will approach me and say, ‘Which one of these petitions is Arnold’s?’ ” Phea said. “You never know if they like him or not. They can walk away ... but others will only sign the Arnold petitions.”

Each campaign can spend as much money as it wants to collect signatures. A network of petition firms, coordinators and front-line signature gatherers are paid based on the number of signatures they turn in.

For the signature gatherers, the best-paying initiatives are one backed by the governor to restrict government spending and one supported by teachers and prison guard unions called the Tax Fairness Act of 2005.

Though the governor’s plan would hold spending down, the teachers’ initiative would reassess commercial property taxes to raise more money for education, public safety and transportation. At the moment, each side offers $2 a signature.

Joel Fox, a key Schwarzenegger ally, said some initiatives have higher prices than others as a matter of money and priorities. Fox said that the merit pay initiative was “a lower priority,” but that the government spending initiative was Schwarzenegger’s major push.

Citizens to Save California, the main group that is promoting the governor’s initiatives, is planning to pay petition coordinators even more to push the spending initiative. That may include giving individual petition gatherers more money for a high volume of signatures or even autographs and memorabilia from the governor.

Schwarzenegger has yet to call a special election, which would probably take place in November or December, but he has until mid-June to decide. Either way, initiative campaigns must finish their signature gathering within the next two weeks, to give counties enough time to tally and verify the signatures.

“If the governor calls a special election, we’re planning on being ready for that,” said Sid Voorakkara, a political consultant for Californians for Tax Fairness, which is supporting the commercial property tax measure.

But Ted Costa, author of a measure to change how legislative districts are drawn, is worried that many voters are signing the same petitions twice, invalidating them. He fears that he won’t get enough signatures before the deadline. Even he is confused sometimes.

“If you go to the supermarket and you see three petitions and you look them over and sign two and the next week they have eight of them,” Costa said, “how do you know which ones you signed before? I don’t even know.”

In front of the Manhattan Beach Target Greatland, Carolyn Lavilla signed a half-dozen petitions lined up at one of two tables. The customer service representative for United Airlines signed petitions that are being promoted by unions, Democrats, Schwarzenegger and others.

Lavilla, a Democrat, said she had little patience with unions, corporations or government employees. “Nobody ever does anything about anything. Since all these things are making people mad, they might be good,” she said.

Phea gently encourages people to sign petitions even if their ideologies are mixed, switching his political expertise as they move their pens from clipboard to clipboard. Many have political views they want to share.

Thon Walker of Torrance walked up and eyed the commercial property tax initiative to fund education.

“All the darn lottery money is supposed to be going to the schools,” she said. “What’s up with that?”

“I think it’s all the wasting that is going on,” Phea said, “like at L.A. Unified.”

Walker moved on to redistricting and said, “I don’t know anything about that.”

Phea used a line he would repeat to other skeptics: “It just gets it on the ballot.”

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Times staff writer Joe Mathews contributed to this report.