How Prospects for Prop. 66 Fell So Far, So Fast

The phone rang at midnight.

Jeff Randle, one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's political consultants, was working in a hotel room near LAX on the night of Oct. 21 as he grabbed his cellphone. Who, Randle wondered, could be calling him at such an hour?

Pete Wilson was on the line. The former California governor had just clinched an agreement that, only 12 days before the election, would mean the collapse of Proposition 66, a measure to limit the state's three-strikes law.

Henry T. Nicholas III, an Orange County billionaire whose sister was slain in 1984, had just promised Wilson a donation of $1.5 million for the campaign to defeat the initiative. That money would allow its opponents to broadcast TV commercials for the first time.

"My message on that call was: OK, you've got the money, so let's go," Wilson recalled last week. "This was the cavalry coming over the ridge."

The day before Wilson's midnight call, Californians appeared ready to pass Proposition 66. A Times poll showed it leading 62%-21% among registered voters. Less than two weeks later, after a media blitz financed by Nicholas, Proposition 66 lost, with 53.2% of voters against it. A final tally will not be available until all absentee and provisional ballots are counted.

"We've seen steep declines before," says Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll, which recorded a 65%-18% lead for Proposition 66 in early October. "The very late-breaking nature of this decline, I think, is unprecedented."

The story of that turnaround highlights not only the power of money and the volatility of initiative politics, but also the continuing political partnership between the state's two most recent Republican governors.

On Oct. 22, the day after Wilson's call, Schwarzenegger made "No on 66" the top priority of his ballot measure campaigning. On Oct. 23, the governor spent the afternoon making TV advertisements opposing the initiative in a Los Angeles studio. Schwarzenegger also converted TV time he had bought to fight two gambling measures into time for "No on 66" ads.

"What I basically did was brought everyone together and said, 'Look, guys ... we've got to go and communicate to the people,' " Schwarzenegger said last week.

Schwarzenegger also said he had asked Wilson to get involved. Wilson campaigned for the original three-strikes initiative in 1994 and maintains long-standing relationships with law enforcement and crime victims groups. Those involved in the No on 66 campaign say he provided a crucial bridge to Nicholas, law enforcement groups and Schwarzenegger's political advisors, among them several one-time Wilson aides.