To Peter Mathews, the political timing seems perfect. A gallon of gas costs more than $4, the five largest oil companies have made $30 billion in profits this year, and California's higher education system is losing at least $1.4 billion to help balance the state's gargantuan budget deficit.
The political science professor at Cypress College, a community college in Orange County, drove to UC Berkeley on Friday to begin gathering support for a ballot measure to tax oil companies on the petroleum they extract in California and send the money - about $2 billion a year - to public schools.
But should his measure qualify for the November ballot, Mathews and liberal groups worry that a pair of deep-pocketed brothers could emerge to fight the initiative: Charles and David Koch (pronounced "coke") of Kansas, who have used the billions they've made in the oil industry to try to reshape national politics in their conservative, free-market image.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2011/05/09/MN561I5MQC.DTL