November/December 1994 Issue

What SOS Means in California

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photographs by Macduff Everton

Barbara Coe and Ron Rrince (above) co-founded California’s Proposition 187, the “Save our State” initiative, which would deny education and health services to 2.1 million undocumented immigrants. They are cynical about getting it passed. “Anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent of the people will go into the voting booth, read the title of the initiative, and make up their mind at that moment,” Prince said. The measure is publicly tied to Gov. Pete Wilson, but Prince snapped off my tape recorder to say that Wilson is a phony on illegal immigration, only supporting the measure when it became clear he needed to move to the right. Recorder back on: “We’re very confident in Wilson and are glad he’s supporting our initiative.” We never officially went off the record, so too bad, Ron.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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