Campaign finance reform has been bubbling as an issue for a number of years. And any time someone manages even a small step forward, you know you’re going to have the big money corporations, the Club for Growth, and all other manner of rich righties lining up to defend their right to freely spend their money on as much questionable propaganda as they can muster. Normally the battle lines are pretty clear on this, ideologically speaking. That is, of course, unless you subscribe to Sen. Carole Migden’s particular brand of “progressivism”.
After the Fair Political Practices Commission barred her from accessing more than $640,000 from an old campaign account because, well…she didn’t transfer it out of her Assembly campaign account before she left the Assembly (whoops), she sued to get it back. Free political speech, her argument goes, trumps playing by the rules.
And today, a District Court judge agreed. U.S. District Court Judge Edmund Brennan granted a temporary injunction against the FPPC’s locking of the account:
“I think serious questions have been demonstrated here as to the constitutionality, as to the manner in which the statute is being applied” by the FPPC, Brennan said at the end of an hour-long hearing.
Migden’s attorneys claim the regulation is to prevent termed-out legislators from plundering their campaign funds for personal use, saying “Migden ‘is not here asking the court, ‘Please allow me to use campaign funds on a new car.'” (Nevermind that you never know when she might need a new car)
The FPPC claims that she still won’t get her mitts on the money because she’s violated other regulations too (specifically, multiple bank accounts for one campaign committee). Migden’s lawyers shot back that they’ll just keep suing until they get the money, a plan which, I’m sure, won’t add any motivation to the FPPC’s $9 million countersuit against Migden for assorted sketchy (and allegedly not allowed) finance issues.
So our saga continues. After getting her CDP endorsement shot down convincingly (71.3% of the floor) on Sunday, Migden has a brief glimpse of a recovery thanks to throwing campaign finance regulation under the bus for her personal benefit. One thing that struck me about her, ahem, perplexing implosion over the weekend was that it was the worst possible time for it. 2,000 delegates trapped together in San Jose for two days is not the time to give people something to talk about. Right after being repudiated by those same people seems an odd time to throw progressive principles by the wayside in the name of political survival.
The Fair Political Practices Commission is proposing new disclosure laws for travel expenses for legislators, which are obviously in response to revelations about Fabian Nuñez’ lavish globetrotting. The regulations would require public proof that all activities had a legitimate government purpose, before the fact rather than after it comes out in the media.
Under a proposal made Monday by the state’s ethics watchdog, detailed public disclosure of who benefited from such spending would be required of state officeholders, if given final approval next month. In addition, certain nonprofit groups involved in political campaigns would be forced to reveal their donors under a separate proposal by the Fair Political Practices Commission […]
Under the new proposal, politicians and candidates would have to publicly list the gift recipients by name and the nature of the gift. They also would have to provide the dates of meals, the number of people at a meal and whether the diners included the politician’s family or staff.
For out-of-state travel, politicians would have to disclose the dates and destination of travel and whether expenditures covered family and staff.
In all of these categories, the reports “shall state facts sufficient to demonstrate the political, legislative, or governmental purpose of the expenditure.”
The rule also would require campaign account treasurers to make available to the commission, but not necessarily to the public, the names of all people who benefited from travel and meal expenditures.
The proposal was met favorably by the Nuñez camp as a way to improve accountability and increase sunshine. I can’t see anyone, even the non-profits, finding this disagreeable unless they want to closely guard their own personal secrets. This is a common-sense measure to ensure taxpayers that their good name – and their money – is being used legitimately and to the benefit of the state.
There’s a simple solution to all of this. When politicians want to use their influence to raise money for charity, the money should go directly to the charity. They get the credit, the charity gets their money, everyone’s happy. But that’s not what’s happening, and too many questions are being raised about just what the politicians are doing with the money.
The chairman of California’s political watchdog agency says the growing practice of politicians soliciting millions for pet causes apparently is being abused for self-serving gain and needs to be reined in.
“If I could, with the stroke of a pen, I’d do away with it,” said Ross Johnson, chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission.
“It’s a huge end run around the contribution limits that the people of California voted for” in Proposition 34 seven years ago, he said.
Payments “at the behest of” should clearly be abolished. There’s absolutely no reason for them. If you want to look like a good politician by raising money for charity, let the charity have it directly. Otherwise, you get stuff like this.
More than $5 million has been donated at politicians’ request both this year and last – far more than any year since disclosure began nearly a decade ago.
The money is meant for public benefit and cannot be used for campaigning, but some has been spent in ways that enhance a politician’s image, such as for billboards or television ads.
Days before a fiercely contested Democratic primary last year, for example, John Garamendi solicited $300,000 in public-benefit funds for a TV advertisement in which he touted his performance as insurance commissioner without specifically asking voters to support him in his bid for lieutenant governor, a post he ultimately won.
(This video can’t be good. It’s overly sensationalist, and more than a bit trashy. But still, the underlying question remains at a time when such questions could be disastrous for the term limits initiative. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)
“There’s not too big a difference,” Nuñez told Vogel, “between how I live and how most middle-class people live.”
Hands down, it’s the quote of the year.
I’m not sure what middle-class people Nuñez is talking about, but I’m worried that he’s spending entirely too much time with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Could the speaker be talking about Brentwood’s middle-class?
That’s the kind of quote that haunts people throughout their political career. And Lopez connects it to fears of buying access that should worry all of us, especially in light of the special session.
It’s the democracy we’ve all been waiting for in Sacramento. Gulfstreams, Louis Vuitton office supplies and nose-thumbing responses to inquiring constituents.
Given Nuñez’s refusal to explain the specific purpose of his travels, Carmen Balber of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights is biting her nails, hoping Nuñez wasn’t sampling fine wine with players who have pumped $5.3 million into the “Friends of Fabian Nuñez” campaign kitty.
“The first question that comes to mind is whether the health insurance industry was sponsoring the speaker’s lavish trips, as he’s now debating the future of the health market in California,” Balber said.
She notes that Nuñez’s travel fund has received $136,000 from health insurers and their lobbyists. And Nuñez is working with Schwarzenegger ($719,000 and counting from health insurers and their lobbies) on a health insurance reform bill that would require every Californian to buy coverage, but wouldn’t require insurers to cap the cost.
Certainly the insurers would love to raise a fine bottle of red to the passage of such a bill, and Nuñez has been known to pop the cork on crushed grapes that run as high as $224 a bottle.
I think we have to look at the root causes of something like this. I believe it directly comes out of a static Democratic Party, with its extreme gerrymandering and zealous antipathy to primaries. Matt Stoller has an incredible post today about the broken market for Democratic primaries, and I think it’s directly relatable to what we’re seeing in California. On the flip…
Let’s go through why primaries are essential vehicles.
One, primaries create tremendous efficiencies for activists, concerned citizens, and outside groups. Spending inordinate amounts of time calling and writing Democratic members of Congress or advertising to get their attention, all to get them to do what they should be doing anyway is incredibly costly, and is a direct result of a lack of real political costs to bad faith actions that would be imposed by a healthy series of primary challenges. The lack of primaries is in effect a tremendous negative feedback loop for activism, dampening all of our focused energy as a piece of insulation does summer heat.
Two, democracy is a core Democratic value. The right to vote, and have that vote counted, is meaningful because it allows citizens to generate buy-in to their civic structures. This is as true within a party as it is within a country (and as true within a union, club, corporation, or church). It’s no accident that the Democratic Party gained tens of thousands of new registrants in 2006 in Connecticut. Democratic structures make our party and our country stronger, whether that’s by generating Democratic volunteer or donor lists in a hot primary that can be moved over to a general election or letting a festering intraparty fight get resolved by putting it to the voters.
Three, a lack of primaries disenfranchises Democratic voters. John Tanner, who has not faced a real race in years, or Lynn Woolsey, simply do not have to represent their constituents. They may choose to do so, but they do not have to. And their constituents have no recourse. Their constituents are cut out. In that case, why be a Democrat? Why volunteer for Democrats, or donate if the party itself isn’t democratic?
Four, primaries are a check on calcification and corruption within the party. The only way to keep Congressional representatives responsive to party activists and voters and not corrupted by their control of the party is to have regular mechanisms for feedback by activists and voters. Joe Biden obviously should be challenged for his Senate seat in 2008, but it’s not likely to happen, and this was true for Tom Carper and Dianne Feinstein in 2006.
All of these are key elements of the situation we’re seeing in California. It’s hard to keep activism high when the legislature in Sacramento seems like such a closed system, even to rank-and-file legislators. We have a Big Five and a Little One Hundred And Sixteen, and this is a discouraging development. There is also no excitement generated by Democrats throughout the state, no opportunities for registering new voters and bringing new ideas to the process. The legislators have little belief that they can be beaten once they first get elected, so they don’t feel any need to respect the wishes of their constituents. And the end result is a calcified Democratic Party with a shrinking base, which has ceded much of the inland areas in the state and is concerned primarily with holding on to their fiefdoms. Plus, the opportunities for corruption and ethical lapses, as we see in this case, are amplified.
This is obviously a drastic reading of what goes on in the state. We have decent majorities and have passed some praiseworthy policies in recent years. But the ability to go further and do more is always suppressed, and political power is centralized among a select few. Just as there is a narrow establishment class in Washington that discourages inter-party debate and primary efforts, the same class exists in California, as the establishment appears to abhor the idea of even growing the majority by competing in “red” areas, let alone taking a hard look at the seats under Democratic control to judge whether there is an effective legislator working to advance our interests and values. This is not about purging the party and shrinking the tent, this is about saving the party from itself, as they are shrinking their own tent and dampening activism. The demographics are working for the party in many ways, but also against the party, as job growth moves inland into fast-growing areas like Riverside and Ontario in the south, and districts like CA-11 up north.
We are squandering an opportunity to build a strong legislative majority that can move forward real change by investing power in the hands of an unaccountable few and watching idly as they are tempted by powerful interests to use that power to do little more than protect the status quo. One of the few ways to change this paradigm is to support any efforts to make strong challenges in the primaries to hold these power brokers accountable. Another is to take a long look at the effort to entrench power further by changing the term limit law in a way to keep the leadership in charge for another 6-8 years. Regardless of whether or not you agree with term limits as an abstract concept, you have to ask yourself if it’s advisable to create a situation that would again centralize power, calcify the party leadership and reduce efforts for real change.
(Obviously, meaningful campaign finance reform, which would remove the money barrier to contested primaries, is a great vehicle to kick-start this process.)
One thing leaped out at me when reading Frank Russo’s roundup of the bills that passed through the state legislature yesterday. That is that AB1430, a plan that will completely gut local campaign-finance reform laws, passed through the State Sente after a unanimous vote in the Assembly earlier this year. All 15 Republican Senators joined 12 Democratic Senators to support the bill, giving it the bare minimum of 27 votes it needed to pass. Bill Cavala tried to mount a defense of the bill in July by saying it’s an attempt to break municipal monopolies and foster competition locally. Right, because it’s always the case that challengers can outraise incumbents, ay? Sadly, both state parties backed this measure because they both want to MAINTAIN their fiefdoms in their respective regions without allowing localities to manage their elections their own way. Anytime you hear a politician argue for less restrictions on campaign money, ask yourself if they’re doing this to aid their opponents. The answer is usually no. From the Chronicle editorial:
Let’s be clear: This bill deals with one very specific type of “communication” — an expenditure on behalf of a candidate, in collaboration with the campaign itself. These are direct political contributions. If local governments want to limit them — as the Legislature has done for state races — they should have a right to do so.
Now, if the governor signs the bill, they won’t. And that will probably help Democrats more than Republicans, particularly with regard to labor. Doesn’t make it right, however.
Even though Loni Hancock’s Clean Money bill, allowing for a pilot program to attempt public financing for state elections, was turned into a two-year bill, meaning it won’t be eligible for passage until 2008, I was under the impression that campaign finance reform was making some progress in the state legislature. And while this shocker legislation is more about the state exerting control on local municipalities more than anything else, it certainly puts a damper on public financing efforts, as it would virtually eliminate any local limits on contributions.
Legislation that opponents said would eviscerate local governments’ ability to limit the size of campaign contributions was approved Tuesday by a state Senate committee.
The bill, backed by a powerful coalition that includes the Democratic and Republican parties, labor unions and the National Rifle Association, cleared the Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee on a 3-0 vote.
Special interests and the state parties want to dictate what they can spend on campaigns at the local level, and they want to disallow any reasonable attempts by the local governments to limit their influence. This is really a blow against federalism in the context of the state vs. the local governments, and I find it distasteful. If Santa Monica wants to experiment with Clean Money, or limit campaign contributions, why should the state disallow it? Assemblyman Martin Garrick, the Republican sponsor of the legislation, is using truly devious logic to push this forward:
Garrick said the measure was merely an attempt to clarify current law and avoid a “patchwork of laws” preventing political parties and other statewide organizations from communicating with their members about which candidates the groups support and oppose.
“What I am assuring is that members of a membership organization like the California Teachers Association or the League of Conservation Voters can afford to freely communicate . . . with their members,” he said.
But Ned Wigglesworth, a lobbyist for California Common Cause, said the bill would open up an “enormous loophole” by preventing cities and counties from capping campaign donations that are arranged by candidates and used to pay for mailers sent by political parties to their members.
“It’s about local control over local elections,” he said. “Without such safeguards, local contribution limits would be rendered worthless.”
This would be devastating. It may even allow organizations to avoid reporting requirements. What the hell are we doing here?
Ron Calderon, Mod Squad member in good standing, chaired the committee that passed the bill. Your state senator ought to hear from you on this one. It would be a major step backward in the goal to remove the influence of big money in state politics.
This is an absolutely enormous development. Clean Money got kind of lost in the shuffle at last weekend’s CDP Convention, but Loni Hancock’s AB 583 has been quietly making its way through the Assembly. It cleared the Assembly Elections Committee, and yesterday there was a hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which was favorable. And now, the Senate President pro Tem has signed on to be a co-author. Considering that the CDP wouldn’t take a position on Clean Money just a year ago, this is historic news. Susan Lerner writes in an email to supporters:
I want you to be among the first to hear the exciting news: California Senate President pro Tem Don Perata just became a co-author of AB 583, the Clean Money bill!
The President pro Tem joins an ever-growing list of Legislators who are co-authors of AB 583, the California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act. Clean Money supporters in Senator Perata’s Oakland district and throughout California should be proud because it was your calls, letters, and petitions that convinced him to sign on as a active Clean Money supporter.
over…
As Mark Leno said in yesterday’s Appropriation Committee hearing, “AB 583 is more than just a bill, it’s a movement.” Two years ago it was stopped in committee. Last year it cleared the Assembly. And this year, Perata’s support will go a long way to helping it pass both houses and go on to the governor. This movement understands that the ability to wage fair and clean elections is vital to sustaining our democracy. You can join the movement working to clean up our political process here.
