From Ballotpedia

Charles T. Munger, Jr. is an occasional activist in California ballot proposition politics, including in 2010, when he successfully sponsored Proposition 20, after having supported Proposition 11 in 2008.

Munger is an experimental physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.^[1] He has a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University.^[2]

In 2006, Munger was a member of California's Curriculum Commission, an advisory commission of the California State Board of Education.^[1]

Munger married Charlotte Lowell in 1989. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Lowell is an attorney with the law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom.

Munger is one of eight children of Charles Munger, the billionaire vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.^[3]

Redistricting reform

Munger contributed $12,157,441 to Proposition 20. Susan Shafer, a spokesperson for the Proposition 20 campaign, said, "He’s a physicist by trade, but he’s extremely interested in this issue."^[4]

Munger told a reporter for the New York Times, "I would’ve been very welcome in Republican circles if I decided to go chuck 10 million in a bunch of races up and down the state to fight for Republican control of Congress. It isn’t a worthy ambition compared to doing this."^[5]

He also said, "I’m doing this to try to ensure voters have fair districts where representatives will compete for offices. Elected politicians are picking the voters, voters aren’t picking their representatives."^[6]

Alice Huffman, the president of the California N.A.A.C.P., said, "You know I’m hard pressed to agree with what a Republican says. But it’s plain wrong to say just because he’s a Republican, he’s doing something bad. This man is a do-gooder, plain and simple."^[5]

Munger's interest in redistricting is said to date to his experience in 2004 as a campaign volunteer for Steve Poizner's campaign for State Assembly. Munger started out "attaching addresses to envelopes."^[5] Luis Buhler, who ran the campaign, said that Poizner's loss was "a formative experience" for Munger: "He saw in that race that the way that district was drawn prevented the election of a man he thought was much better qualified. That was really the first time he realized how it all worked."^[5]

Political giving

Ballot measures

Ballot measure campaigns Munger has been involved in include:

• California Proposition 20, Congressional Redistricting (2010). $12,157,441 to the "yes" side, which won.
• California Proposition 11 (2008). He gave $1.3 million to the "yes" side, which won.
• California Proposition 93 (2008). He gave $150,000 to the "No on 93" side, which won.
• California Proposition 77 (2005). He gave $100,000 to the "yes" side, which lost.
• California Proposition 60 (2004). He gave $200,000 to the "No on 60" side of this ballot proposition.

Other

From 2005-2009, Munger contributed $5.7 million to political campaigns.^[7]

Personal

Munger is the brother of Molly Munger, an attorney in Pasadena, who is leading the charge on a possible 2012 ballot initiative, the "Our Schools, Our Future" initiative, which would raise taxes to provide additional money to the state's public school districts.^[8] Munger has indicated that she is willing to fund the approximately $2 million cost of gathering the signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot.^[9],^[10]

External links

• Charles Munger, Jr. political donations in 2008

References

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