George Lakoff

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George Lakoff

George Lakoff was the official sponsor of the California End the Two-Thirds Requirement Amendment (2010). As of 2019, He was also a professor of linguistics at the University of California-Berkeley, where he had taught since 1972.

As a linguist, Lakoff had written a number of influential books and journal articles in which he argued that people understand the world through metaphors. He was dubbed the "Father of Framing" by the New York Times.

Political activism such as that exhibited by filing the language for a California ballot proposition was not new to Lakoff. He founded the Rockridge Institute in 2003 to advocate for certain progressive causes. The strategy of the Rockridge Institute was primarily to discover ways to re-frame and articulate progressive views in ways that Lakoff believed would make these views more widely accepted. The Rockridge Institute closed in 2008.

Don't Think of a Tax

Lakoff referred to the End the Two-Thirds Requirement Amendment as the "California Democracy Act." According to Lakoff, "This isn't about taxes. It's about democracy." Furthermore, he said, "I believe most people don't know this is a minority-rule state, and if they knew that they wouldn't like it. And if they knew it was undemocratic and that bringing back democracy would end gridlock, they would like that."

Poll

According to Lakoff, a poll he commissioned to measure sentiment in favor of his proposal to repeal the 2/3rds requirement for raising taxes found that 73 percent were in favor when the language was, ""All legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote."

However, when voters were surveyed on the description of Lakoff's amendment created by the Attorney General of California in its official ballot title, support for the measure dropped to 38%.

Lakoff believed this was because the ballot title used the phrases taxes and increase three times.

Ballot initiative positions

Lakoff filed proposed ballot language with election officials for the End the Two-Thirds Requirement Amendment, saying, "...At the last minute, I decided that if no one else was going to do it, I would. Later, he said, "...I found out that there was a tremendous amount to do (to qualify)."

He also said, "You can talk about framing all you want; if there’s not a communication system, it doesn’t work. Democrats haven’t built a communication system. Republicans have."

Chandra Friese, a real estate agent in San Francisco who was helping with the effort, said, "George is a full-time professor. He's an idealist and an intellectual - but he's not a political animal. So getting the campaign structure ready to go took some time."

In April, the initial version of the proposed amendment was withdrawn, and another version filed, with an eye toward qualifying for the 2012 ballot.

Books

• 2009: The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist's Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics. Penguin Reprint (June 2009)
• 2004: Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate; The Essential Guide for Progressives. Chelsea Green.
• 2002: Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. University of Chicago Press.
• 2000: Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being. Basic Books.
• 1987: Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. University of Chicago Press.

External links

• UC-Berkeley profile of Lakoff
• Collection of Lakoff's writings at the Huffington Post