Measure C is a 0.5% sales tax that was approved by voters in March 2020 to generate approximately $150 million annually for expanding access to early childhood education in Alameda County. The effort to pass it was so immense, there is a documentary about it called “Clarissa’s Battle”. It follows our Executive Director Clarissa Doutherd through the challenges of attempting – and succeeding – to pass the largest ballot measure of its kind, in a tremendous coalition of labor unions, family childcare centers, community based-organizations, and service agencies. Then we had to battle over the implementation of it and nearly 5 years passed before the funds actually started to flow out to the community. Now, just in the first year, over $135 million has been distributed, reaching nearly 20,000 children and 6,400 early educators and caregivers.
In a time when daycares are closing their doors and thousands of families in Alameda County are experiencing deepening crises due to cuts to healthcare and nutrition support, the funds from Measure C are a bright spot in a bleak landscape. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a fight to protect the funds and to insist that they are neither backfill nor an excuse to cut other funding. It is a bold statement about both the worth of Early Childhood Education and educators as well as the true cost of excellent, safe, and accessible childcare.
We almost didn’t get here. In 2020, when Measure C first passed, the Alameda County Taxpayer’s Association challenged its legitimacy in court, despite the measure being approved by Alameda County voters. The Alameda County Taxpayer’s Association alleged that the measure needed a two-thirds majority to pass, not a simple majority.
Despite 64% of Alameda County voters supporting the measure, the litigation was enough to grind the measure to a halt for over four years. During that time, $400 million dollars amassed from the measure while thousands of children and early educators and caregivers were made to wait on these much-needed funds. In the end, we were victorious and the California Supreme Court declined to review the case and the funds have now started to be distributed. Despite this, there is still a sting that this attempt to thwart the will of the people of Alameda County withheld critical funding for children, families, educators and caregivers with the deepest need.
And now Prop 43 threatens to make this attempted coup the norm for ballot measures. Prop 43 would mean that a two-thirds majority would be needed for any ballot measure to pass, making the already immense lift of passing a ballot measure for grassroots groups nearly impossible.
Had proposition 43 been in place as our coalition worked to pass Measure C, the measure would have failed. And tens of thousands of Alameda County families and early educators would not receive $150 million each year for access to early childhood education, in addition to the funding for pediatric care, improvements to facilities to support children and families, and wage increases for educators. Measure C has forever changed the landscape of childcare in Alameda County – and it could easily have never come into existence if Prop 43 had been in place.
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Annie Banks, Coalition & Community Partnerships Organizer Parent Voices Oakland… Parent Voices Oakland (PVO) is a parent-led, Black-led grassroots organizing and advocacy organization based in Oakland and serving families across Alameda County. For more information on their work, visit pvoakland.org.
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