Prop. 30 Campaign Goes to the Dogs

Governor Jerry Brown’s 9-year-old Pembroke Welsh corgi, Sutter, visited Santa Barbara on Thursday to encourage Democratic volunteers making phone calls on behalf of Prop. 30, a revenue measure that would increase the state sales taxes by a quarter percent and raise income taxes on those earning over $250,000.

An October 25 USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll shows that only 46 percent of registered voters support the proposition. State Senate candidate Hannah-Beth Jackson, who took her turn posing with the First Pooch, said that the demographics of voters registering online in the past few weeks favor Prop. 30.

The current budget calls for $6 billion in cuts, mostly to education, if the measure does not pass. City College Board President Peter Haslund, also in attendance Thursday, pointed out that community college tuition has increased 70 percent in three years. “It’s not fair,” he said of the burden on young people.

Sutter — adopted by Brown from his sister Kathleen when she moved to Chicago — is in the midst of a 30-city tour stumping for his owner’s political gambit.