Calif. Prop 23: Greens Enjoy Major Fundraising Lead In Campaign Battle Over Oil Company Backed Measure

Over at the NY Times’s Green blog, Todd Woody has an update on the Proposition 23 race, reporting that environmentalists opposed to the ballot measure have opened a sizable fund-raising lead.  As I wrote last week, not only are greens better funded over their oil-industry backed opponents, but they enjoy a significant advantage in terms of mobilization and political endorsements.

Here’s what Woody describes based on the latest information released from the California Secretary of State office:

At the start of the campaign for California’s Proposition 23, the ballot measure that would suspend the state’s global warming law, opponents darkly warned that the Texas oil companies backing the initiative would spend as much as $50 million to win the election.

But with three weeks until Election Day, it is the No on 23 coalition of environmentalists, investors and Silicon Valley technology companies that is raking in the cash, taking in nearly twice as much money as the Yes on 23 campaign.

As of Monday, the No on 23 forces had raised $16.3 million to the Yes campaign’s $8.9 million, according to California Secretary of State records. Over the past two weeks, nearly $7 million has flowed into No campaign coffers while contributions to the Yes effort had fallen off dramatically….

….Campaign finance records show that the No campaign has attracted big donations from Silicon Valley venture capitalists, New York hedge fund managers, national environmental groups and green technology executives.

John Doerr, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and his wife, Ann, have given $2 million to the No campaign. Wendy Schmidt, a philanthropist and wife of Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, donated $500,000 while Lucy Southworth, a Stanford doctoral student and wife of Google co-founder Larry Page, contributed $100,000. Members of San Francisco’s Fisher family, founders of The Gap clothing empire, have donated more than $ 1 million.

More than $800,000 has come from activists who work on behalf of low-income communities afflicted by pollution.

Blue Shield of California, the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Waste Management and other mainstream corporations have also contributed to the No effort.