“Well”, I says to myself.  “The seniors sure don’t like John Laird much.”   I had just listened to a radio ad hitting John Laird in his race for the Special 15th Senate District.  Something about budgets and spending and salaries and expenses.  Standard hit.  Nothing special.  But I was struck at the end by the sponsors of the ad:  The California Senior Advocates League.  I’ve been worried recently about my father who is in a senior center,so I’m glad to learn that there is a League that advocates for him.  Who are these guys and is it possible they could help my father?

So I looked them up and it turns out that the California Senior Advocates League has only been advocating for seniors for a couple of weeks.  Mostly they have been advocating for seniors by sending out mailings against Mary Salas who is running in the Democratic Primary in the 40th State Senate District.  They are apparently branching out by hitting John Laird also.

But who are these kindly older people who make up the California Senior Advocates.  There are only two donors:  JOBSPAC, A Bi-partisan Coalition of CA Employers and Put California Back to Work, Sponsored by the Civil Justice Assn of California.  So is that it?  These guys want to advocate for seniors by putting them back to work?  I’ll have to check with Dad, but I don’t know that he wants to go back to work–depending of course on the job.

And who is this Civil Justice Association?  And why do they want to put seniors back to work?  I looked them up and it turns out that the “Put California Back to Work, Sponsored by the Civil Justice Assn of California” is filled with some pretty great groups including, CA Alliance for Progress and Education (I am for progress and I am for education); Californians for Balance and Fairness in the Civil Justice System (I love balance and fairness); Californians for Jobs and a Strong Economy (you betcha); Diversity PAC (is this like LGBT?); JOBSPAC (wait…they are the senior partner of the Senior Advocates!); a whole bunch of insurance companies.

So it seems that JOBSPAC is the real player here.  Who exactly is JOBSPAC?  They are a virtual Who’s Who of big business.  A candidate might be shy about getting money from Phillip Morris, but they are less shy about getting money from JOBSPAC.  So Phillip Morris and Anthem Blue Cross and Chevron and the Pharmaceutical Industry contribute to JOBSPAC and the politicians they support are not tarnished by the unseemliness of taking money from companies from big business.

The easy answer is for business to hide behind JOBSPAC.  Some think that JOBSPAC is just too controversial so they hide behind these little pop up PACs like “Put California Back to Work” and “California Senior Advocates”.  I want to know the process of developing the names.  Is it like a drinking game?  Do lobbyists get cash prizes for coming up with the most ironic and cynical names of organizations?  

Actually, I think they do.