School-budget ballots are normally low-turnout affairs, and therefore dominated by the teachers themselves.
Parliamentary leaders have said they intend to hold the budget vote via secret ballot, an arrangement that may lessen the pressure on members of parliament from their home governments to approve the deal.
While Mr. Vacco conceded that his client put together a budget for ballot security that was not fully adhered to, he said it was just a loose plan that Mr. Haggerty had assembled on the advice of the campaign's chief financial officer.
The New Jersey chapter of Americans for Prosperity, an interest group that advocates lower taxes, is loudly opposing all three budget-related ballot proposals with radio and television commercials.
California voters on Tuesday approved two budget-related ballot measures heavily promoted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, demonstrating the power of his celebrity and salesmanship.
SAN FRANCISCO — When California voters go to the polls on Tuesday to decide the fate of six budget-related ballot measures, one could argue that they have only themselves to blame.
His approval rating is in the 30s, his state is broke and the policy celebrations of the past have been replaced with scenes like one recently in Los Angeles in which Mr. Schwarzenegger stood on a sweltering patio at a senior housing center trying to persuade a small group of voters to back a slate of budget-related ballot measures needed to keep California solvent.
But three decades of staggering population growth combined with three high-impact recessions, budgeting by ballot box, federal mandates, an unusual tax structure and the rising cost of social services have finally produced disastrous results, and the ramifications are reaching across every aspect of life in this state.
That is just the base school budget; in separate ballot questions, voters will be asked for even more.
California's governorship is a pretty weak one: the state's government is a mess of competing districts, counties and cities, with much of the budget mandated by ballot initiatives.
