Reiner Takes a Leave From Panel on Children
SACRAMENTO — Facing pressure from legislators and others, producer Rob Reiner said Friday he is taking a leave as chairman of a state commission that spent $23 million for ads touting the value of early education while he is promoting a statewide preschool initiative.
Reiner took the action in a letter addressed to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The leave takes effect immediately and will last until June 7, the day after voters decide the fate of Proposition 82, a Reiner-backed initiative to raise taxes on wealthy Californians to pay for preschool for all 4-year-olds.
Reiner has said that he and the First 5 California Children and Families Commission he has chaired since its inception in 1999 have done nothing improper but that he will step aside for the good of the commission.
His disclosure, however, came on a day when state Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine and Assemblyman Dario Frommer (D-Glendale), a candidate for state controller, urged Controller Steve Westly to audit the commission, citing concerns that the panel had used tax money to aid the preschool initiative. Tony Strickland, a Republican also running for controller, called for an audit earlier this week.
Westly, seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, declined the requests Friday.
"We conduct audits when the rules, regulations and standards dictate it, not when political pressure is applied," Westly spokesman Yusef K. Robb said. Robb added that California's Fair Political Practices Commission, which enforces state campaign finance law, is "dealing with" the matter. An FPPC spokesman has declined to comment.
From November to January, the First 5 commission, created by a 1998 initiative that increased taxes on a pack of cigarettes by 50 cents, spent $23 million on television ads promoting preschool.
As the ads aired, Reiner launched a new initiative campaign, since qualified as Proposition 82 on the June ballot, to raise taxes by $2.4 billion a year to pay for preschool.
Proposition 10 of 1998 authorizes the use of tobacco tax money for ads, but the bulk is supposed to be spent on programs to aid early childhood healthcare and development.
"This appears to be far more than a coincidence and certainly not what the voters had in mind when they created this commission," Ackerman said in a letter to Westly. Ackerman opposes Proposition 82.
