Model bill accounts for Supreme Court ruling

By Brian Leubitz

In a report recently released, the Center for Governmental Studies calls for a modified version of clean money to control the excessive spending and allow for additional competition.  In fact, they’ve gone ahead and produced a full model bill, complete with language that has some rather grand goals.

It establishes a hybrid system of full and partial public financing systems for statewide and legislative candidates. It provides candidates with an initial lump sum of funds  and then allows them to continue raising matching funds.  

The Act first requires candidates to qualify for public financing by raising a specified amount  of small campaign contributions, ranging from 750 contributions of $5 or more for Assembly  candidates, to 25,000 contributions of $5 or more for gubernatorial candidates. Qualifying  funds can only come from individual residents of the state. Once candidates qualify, the state  provides them with a lump sum of funding to run their campaigns, depending on the office  and the size of the jurisdiction.

The Act also places contribution limits on all state and local candidates running in California.  Specifically, it lowers California’s contribution limits and brings them into line with federal  limits-establishing contribution limits of $2,500 per candidate per election. In addition, the  Act closes a number of loopholes in existing laws, bringing under the same contribution limit  money raised by candidates and officeholders for ballot measure committees, legal defense  committees, inauguration committees and officeholder accounts. The Act also prohibits  off-year fundraising.

Of course, the Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona’s clean money system makes all of this susceptible to a court challenge.  And it is really hard to say which way the Court would go, as their regulation on campaign finance has really gone off the rails.  Ultimately to get the campaign finance system we really need for a robust democracy, we’ll need to repeal Buckley v Valeo and reject the notion that money equals speech.  Otherwise the richest among us get to speak far louder than those that can’t afford to put a million bucks worth of TV commercials on the air.

This Act would be a good start, but don’t expect it to come through the Legislature.  Republicans would fight it tooth and nail, and, of course, they have their own ideas about how to “fix” campaign finance.  Rob Stutzman, a former Schwarzenegger aide, has some suggestions:

Stutzman, however, said lowering contribution limits will put even more pressure on candidates to start raising money early. He said legislators facing term limits should be allowed to plan for future statewide campaigns. Stutzman, instead, would propose raising contribution limits to $100,000 per election and require immediate public disclosure of the donations. (California Watch)

Yes, really $100,000.  That is the Republican plan to “reform” system.  Allowing people to contribute $100,000 to a candidate.  I know that the IEs are kind of outrageous these days, but do we really think that allowing people to give $100K is really the way to solve that?  Seems like a long way down the slippery slope that just leads to unlimited contributions.  Are we eventually just going to give in and let Larry Ellison, Reed Hastings, Stewart Resnick, the gambling tribes, and Chevron sit around a table and decide who will be our next set of leaders?

I know a lot of people complain about “we can’t afford” to spend money on political campaigns, but the truth is that we can’t afford not to.  As it stands, we throw billions of dollars, from all levels of government, at stupid projects pushed by the wealthy.  Yet we can’t afford publicly financed campaigns. Funny how that is.

Now that the Supreme Court has apparently decided that the Calitics Editorial Board’s amicus brief wasn’t all that persuasive in Citizens United, corporate money is now more powerful than ever.  Congress has been nibbling around the edges, suggesting some (possibly Constitutional) reforms that would change the way corporations can approve political spending.  However, they have, as of yet, really considered the one, and really only, way to combat the Citizens United decision: a publicly financed campaign system.  Some big donors are asking Speaker Pelosi to reconsider that:

A coalition of the country’s wealthiest and most politically active campaign donors wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, urging her to support campaign reform efforts in the wake of last month’s Supreme Court decision allowing unrestricted corporate spending on elections.

The 57 donors who wrote the letter include members of the influential Democracy Alliance group, which includes a number of prominent Californians. (CA Watch)

Of course, Congress doesn’t really like big changes like this. While they might not like the status quo, it keeps them in power. And while I’m not trying to be cynical, I kind of am.  Pliticians don’t like change that could up-end their strangle hold on power. And frankly, there’s nothing that would increase the options voters get to choose from more than clean money.

Frankly, with Buckley and Citizens United, clean money is the last best hope to regain control of our government from the corporate interests. It is the people’s force for change, more than any one politician, or party. Don’t expect it to come easy, corporate interests are strong in DC.  But we here in California can make a statement for clean money by approving Prop 15, the pilot program for a clean money election system for Secretary of State.

We don’t have clean money quite yet, but we could get a lot closer with the passage of an initiative next year to put the 2014 SoS race on a kind of clean money system.  However, in the here and now of CFR, there’s still plenty o’ people breaking the law.

Steve Westly, who lost a Democratic primary for governor in 2006, admitted to 32 counts of campaign finance law violations and agreed to pay $104,500 in a settlement with the Fair Political Practices Commission.

Westly failed to report expenses and information on contractors who were paid for millions of dollars in television ads, according to settlement documents. The fine, like all those announced Monday, still must be approved by the ethics agency, which meets Dec. 10.

State Assemblyman Joel Anderson (R-San Diego) has agreed to pay $20,000 in fines for accepting campaign contributions that exceeded the $3,900 limit for individuals.

Anderson and his representatives solicited more than $45,000 in contributions from five people, in amounts of up to $10,000 each. The money was given to the Fresno County Republican Central Committee, which is not subject to any limits on how much it can accept or donate to candidates. The Fresno committee then gave the same amount to Anderson’s election committee, the settlement said. (LA Times 12/1/09)

Of course, this isn’t the only allegation regarding Asm. Anderson. The FPPC is also looking into how he funneled money from his assembly accounts to his senate accounts via a whole long list of Republican County Central Committees. Apparently Anderson and his crew thought that the central committees were some sort of free pass. Which, it turns out, is only partially true.

As for Westly, you have to wonder where he’s heading with his career. I’m not sure this makes for any long lasting blow, but it certainly doesn’t help. There are a litany of down ballot races coming up in 2014, and a possible Senate race in 2012. Perhaps he’s looking at those?

In June, the California Fair Elections Act will be on the ballot. Basically, the initiative will create a pilot clean money program for Sec of State candidates who agree to be limited by spending caps.

And the response is wildly positive. Around 63% of Californians in this poll said they would support the measure. This is a great place to start off, especially considering there isn’t any organized opposition at this point.  That being said, there is a lot at stake here, so don’t expect that to be the case forever.

The Clean Money Campaign folks have some great information on how it would work:

How Fair Elections Funding Would Work

To Qualify:  Candidates have to receive 7,500 $5 qualifying contributions and signatures from registered California voters to show that they have a broad base of support.

Fair Elections Candidates Receive:  Enough baseline public funds to run competitive primary campaigns ($1,000,000).  If they win their primary they receive enough baseline public funds to run competitive general election campaigns ($1,300,000).

“Fair Fight” Funds If Outspent:  If Fair Elections Candidates are outspent by an opponent who does not participate or if independent groups attack them or support their opponent, they receive matching funds on a dollar for dollar basis within 24 hours to respond, up to total funding of 4 times the base amount, i.e. $4,000,000 in a primary and $5,200,000 in the general election.

Prohibitions for Participating Candidates:  Candidates would be prohibited from raising or spending additional money beyond what they receive from the fund.  Once qualified, they must agree to spending limits and taking no private contributions.

Here’s the full poll: California Fair Elections Act Poll.

Citizens United v Federal Election Commission was initially a narrow challenge to the McCain-Feingold legislation, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BRCA).  However, the Supreme Court having heard the case in the last session on the narrow issues of the Video-on-Demand anti-Hillary movie, decided to rehear the case on a facial challenge, that is to test the constitutionality of the entire piece of legislation.

Together with former Kerry-Edwards internet guru Zack Exley and the Brennan Center at the NYU law school (among others), Calitics and the editorial board decided to join an amicus brief in favor of the constitutionality of the BCRA.

While this was by no means an easy decision, as there are some progressive groups on the other side in this case.  In the end, we felt that the law not only adequately protected new media organizations, but also did a reasonable job of narrowly tailoring the regulations to regulate corporate campaign funds. The BCRA is far from perfect, very far in fact. However, given the sweeping first amendment protections offered by Buckley v Valeo, the BCRA is a decent attempt at getting some sort of campaign finance system in place. Further, striking down BCRA would make any future reform almost weaker by definition as Congress would have to avoid even more constitutional pitfalls.

The brief is fairly short for one of these things, so you can find it over the flip.  

Amicus Brief for BRCA –

First, let me preface this discussion with a statement in support of clean money. I wholeheartedly support it, and think it is one of the key reforms that brings the state towards a functioning government. Despite the first amendment restrictions placed upon campaign finance regulations, clean money has been fairly successful where implemented. It is a worthy reform that would improve our political system, tone, and tenor.

That being said, clean money alone is clearly not enough to fix California’s broken campaign finance system. While I have argued from the day I read the decision in law school through fairly recently  that Buckley v. Valeo was decided incorrectly, until it is overturned it is the law of the land. Clean money really isn’t all that clean when there are loopholes for “issue ads” and other independent expenditures.  We can’t even enforce the relatively lenient laws on the books now, are we sure the FPPC or any other government body could enforce the clean money laws.  

Continue reading over the flip…

From today’s Sac Bee:

Political interests are funneling massive sums to California’s elected leaders through methods that “legally circumvent” contribution limits, the state’s nonpartisan political watchdog has found.

“The mad scramble for special-interest dollars continues to create profound concerns for the future of representative democracy,” the Fair Political Practices Commission said in a report released Monday. (Sac Bee 4/14/09)

There’s a smattering of these stories today, as the FPPC announced that over a billion has been raised for political campaigns since Prop 34 was passed in 2000 to limit this money.  Well over a hundred million of that money runs through the Governor in some form or fashion. He has a labyrinth of campaign accounts, plus a few “nonprofits” on the side.

About $300 million or so of the billion has flowed to non candidate campaigns that are controlled by candidates or elected officials.  These ballot measure campaigns have no limits, and end up being slush funds to dole out cash or to use for some other campaign to get themselves noticed.

Money shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as an evil, after all there’s always the old Jess Unruh saying:

If you can’t drink their booze, take their money, screw their women & vote against them in the morning, you don’t belong in this place.

But appearances matter, people like to see the business of governance operate smoothly without needing a few million bucks to grease the wheels every couple of months. Until Buckley is overruled, truly clean money is really a mirage in the desert.

And if that weren’t enough, David Sirota highlights another form of the not so clean system of politics that we now operate under: reward politics. To put it simply and using his analogy, it is the cookie after the deed. Instead of giving campaign bucks up front, groups offer the possibility of high-paying lobbying gigs after the members leave office. While this is a problem at the federal level (see Lott, Trent), term limits make the problem far more acute here in California.

The biggest problem with this reward corruption is that it can’t be stopped via legislation, and after the electeds leave office there is no political pressure to not take the gigs. We just can’t legislate that once you are an elected official you can never again work for anybody who had a position on any piece of legislation before you.

All of these structural dysfunctions (i.e. term limits, campaign finance loopholes, etc.) all mix and mingle to make things worse.  We need to get a clean money system, but that is far from the final goal. If democracy is really going to be owned by the people of California, there must be a grassroots demand for it. The Clean Money Campaign has done a lot to move this conversation forward here in California, and Larry Lessig and Change-Congress.org are doing a lot on the grassroots front on the federal level, it just isn’t enough at this point.

Is it time to simply toss our hands up in the air and say forget it? Do we leave democracy as a playground for those wealthy enough to play in the sandbox? No, I’m not that cynical yet, but as we pass this $1 Billion milestone, it should give us all pause as to the direction of this fight. It is the underlying fight for every other issue fight; solidly progressive reforms just cannot compete. Take a look at Prop 72 if you have designs upon reforming health care. Or the litany of good bills that die in the legislature at whim of the Governor’s veto pen.

I’m not sure I really can present any way to actually achieve a truly clean campaign system, but I know we must bring attention to the failures of the current system at every opportunity. And I know that we just cannot give up on fixing it.

The current plan to give $700 billion away to Wall Street – the same ones who got us into this mess – is a sign we need Clean Money public financing of campaigns more than ever.  Finance, insurance, and real estate firms have poured over $5 billion in contributions into politicians’ hands since 1990.  They’ve already been paid back by special interest giveaways many times over, and now they’re asking for over $2,000 from every man, woman, and child in the country.

Clean Money is the Only Way to Stop this Madness From Happening Again and Again!

Urge Governor Schwarzenegger to sign AB 583, the California Fair Elections Act, to start ending special interest dominance of politics by sending him a fax right now:

www.CAclean.org/letters

By providing for Clean Money for Secretary of State candidates, AB 583 would let California show the rest of the nation that there’s a much better way, not to mention making sure that the elected official responsible for the very integrity of our elections doesn’t have to fundraise.

Once you’ve sent your fax, please make a call to the Governor as well.  It’s quick because AB 583 has already gotten so many calls that they had to make it one of only five bills (out of 875!) that have their own automated response option.

CALL 916-445-2841 NOW!

You’ll get an automated system when you call so won’t need to even talk to anybody. Do the following:

> Press 1 for English

> Press 2 to “Voice your opinion on legislation”

> Press 5 “about AB 583, regarding the Political Reform Act”

> Press 1 “to register your support”

The line may be busy at first because so many people are calling.  Keep trying until you get through – you should after a few tries.

The Governor said it best:  Special interests have a stranglehold on Sacramento.  Here’s how it works.  Money comes in.  Favors go out.  The people lose..

Remind the Governor of his chance to change that by sending the fax and making the call:

www.CAclean.org/letters

California Clean Money Campaign

www.CAclean.org  

AB 583, the California Fair Elections Act, is likely to have its floor vote in the State Senate today and definitely by Sunday – two steps from the Governor’s desk!  But the vote is going to be a nail-biter.

Lobbyists and the California Chamber of Commerce are trying to kill the bill because it partially pays for the system by raising registration fees on lobbyists to the same level as they are in Illinois ($350 a year), though they’re really worried about not having as much access to elected officials because the $143 million they spend every six months lobbying won’t mean as much if candidates can get elected with public funds.

Let’s not let them stop Fair Elections!  Please send a free fax to your State Senator and to Senate leaders asking them to vote yes on the bill.  Over a thousand people have faxed already, but the more faxes they get today, the better:

www.CAclean.org/letters

Then call up your Senator and ask them to vote Yes!  The fax tool will show you’re their number.

This is the closest a Clean Money bill has ever made it to getting through both houses of the legislature in California, and AB 583 makes the perfect pilot project by funding Secretary of State races to make sure they never have to take money from the likes of Diebold or other private contributors.  So let’s make it happen!

California Clean Money Campaign

www.CAclean.org  

(A first step.  Should be interesting. – promoted by David Dayen)

AB 583, the California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act, has a new funding source to pay for full public financing for Secretary of State campaigns – a $350 annual registration fee on lobbyists, lobbying firms, and lobbyist employers.  As you might suppose, the lobbyists are up in arms at the idea of having to pay the same fee they pay in Illinois – not to mention losing access to elected officials they can’t donate to because they’re using Clean Money instead of private money – and are coming out to fight it.

Let’s not let them stop Clean Money!  The Senate Appropriations Committee hearing is in room 4203 in the state capitol building on Monday morning at 10:00am, and it’s huge.  We’ve got to pack the hearing room with people power to stop the lobbyists from killing it.  Carpools of Clean Money supporters from all parts of the Bay Area all the way down to Orange County are driving up, but we need even more.

If there’s any chance you can come, please join us!  Send an email to [email protected] to tell us you’re coming or to be hooked up with a carpool.

Can’t make it?  Send a fax!

If you can’t make it, use the California Clean Money Campaign’s online letter-writing tool to send a free fax to Appropriations Chair Tom Torlakson, Senate President pro Tem Don Perata, and other targets.  The more faxes they get this week, the better!

www.CAclean.org/letters

This is the closest a Clean Money bill has ever made it to getting through both houses of the legislature in California, and AB 583 makes the perfect pilot project by funding Secretary of State races to make sure they never have to take money from the likes of Diebold or other private contributors.  So let’s make it happen!

California Clean Money Campaign

www.CAclean.org