Cross-posted at Daily Kos

With the passing of Labor Day, we have entered the traditional campaign season: a time for politicians to go meet voters. Yet the reality is that — even as you are reading this — many candidates are locked in a small room as part of the daily ritual known as call time. Somewhere along the line, it became conventional wisdom that money equals ads which equals votes, with call-time seen as the most effective way to raise money and thus win elections.

An entire generation of politicians have been evaluated not by their leadership or ideas, but by their discipline when it comes to spending hours on end begging for big checks, one call after another after another after another. It is commitment to call-time that positions a politician as a contender during the primaries, it decides if a candidate is seen as viable in the general election, and it plays a major role in whether a legislator will rise through the ranks into “leadership”. In short, call-time is seen as one of the most critical attributes in every stage of politics.

Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians could spend the next two months listening to voters instead of talking at donors? The answer is public financing, it is working in other states, and this is the year when it can start working in California.

How it Works
Proposition 89 is the Clean Money and Fair Elections Act on this fall’s ballot in California. The initiative would relegate call-time to history and fundamentally reform the political economy in the most populous state by making public financing of campaigns a reality. Prop 89 levels the playing field so new candidates can win on their ideas, not because of the money they raise.

  * Candidates who agree to spending limits and to take no private contributions qualify for public funding
  * $5 contributions from voters required to prove viability
  * Clean candidates receive enough to run competitive campaigns. They can’t raise money beyond public funds

Why Special Interests are Terrified
Prop 89 makes elections about ideas, not about money. Campaigns are measured by people, not dollars. That’s why trusted groups representing your interests —  like the League of Women Voters of California, California Common Cause, the Consumer Federation of California, and the California Clean Money Campaign — support Prop 89. And why lobbyists and special interests —  like big oil, drug companies, insurance firms, HMOs and some unions — don’t.

Just the other day, KQED Forum became a blogger bash (video here) because blogs threaten the ability of “very vested interests in Sacramento” to come together and oppose Proposition 89.

Bill Whalen, a Hoover Fellow and media consultant for the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Jones, Tom Campbell and Richard Riordan said (transcript via Kid Oakland):

I don’t worry so much as a Republican, but as a citizen, and there’s one word: “the blogosphere”  That’s what scares me.  There are angry people on the left and angry people on the right.  And I’m not sure if I want to see that anger harnessed in reforming our government.  I like the firewall, if you will. … Among the leaders opposing [Prop 89] are the California Teachers Association and the California Chamber of Commerce.  Why?  They are very vested interests in Sacramento, they don’t want the rules changed.  But Direct Democracy, to me we have it in effect in the initiative process and I’d kind of like to keep it harnessed.

What You Can Do
Until Proposition 89 passes, politicians will stay hidden away doing call-time and elections will be about money. The “very vested interests” in Sacramento will spend literally tens of million of dollars to preserve their stranglehold over California.

They may have more money, but reform can happen because we have more people. So take a quick minute and sign up for email updates.

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For daily updates, bookmark the Proposition 89 Blog.

Cross-Posted at Daily Kos.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California Highway Patrol — I am not making this up — has taken to warning public interest groups they could be considered a “Homeland Security Threat” for capturing video to put on YouTube.

Here is the background. This is the final week of California’s legislative session, so lawmakers and lobbyists get together for literally dozens of fundraisers each day as legislators decide the fate of bills. Today’s LA Times headlined an article, Checks Roll In as Laws Flow Out which noted $193,000 moved Monday alone. Even worse, the lobbyist have found a new way to dodge reporting until after the session ends, making accountability reports like this LA Times story more difficult. The tactic is called “pledging” where the lobbyists show up at the big money fundraiser to demonstrate support for a legislator and talk shop, but the money doesn’t actually change hands until after the session is over to dodge the disclosure requirements.

To cast some sunlight on this process and help support this fall’s Clean Money, Proposition 89 initiative, a government watchdog group started showing up at the fundraisers with a video camera and started a website — Channel 89 — with links to all the YouTube video of the events.

The response: intimidation:

Proponents of Proposition 89, which would reduce the role of big money in politics, were warned by a California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer yesterday that they could be considered a “homeland security threat” as they filmed lawmakers and lobbyists wrapping up end of the session deals.

“When did the CHP become a private security force for corporate lobbyists? Prop 89, the campaign finance overhaul, will make the Capitol a public space again,” said Jerry Flanagan of the nonpartisan Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR).

FTCR’s public interest news crew, Channel 89, was in the Capitol yesterday filming lawmakers and lobbyists as they exchange favors and campaign contributions in the final days of the legislative session. A CHP officer warned the Channel 89 staff that they could be considered a “homeland security threat” for filming the democratic process in the Capitol. Shortly after, Channel 89 staff members were stopped as they tried to interview Assembly Speaker Nuñez outside his office. The CHP called FTCR staff to suggest they were breaking the law.

It is easy to understand why the powers that be fear Proposition 89. In addition to strict contribution limits and tough enforcement, Prop 89 also creates public financing of elections in California. Not only would this clean up the special interest strangehold on the state, but by fundamentally reforming the political economy of the largest state, Prop 89 would be a beacon for electoral reform nationwide. Apparently, clean elections and accountability are a threat to Homeland Security.

You can stay up to date on this historic campaign at the Proposition 89 Blog.

(The Money Comes in, The Favors Go Out. It’s time to stop this cycle. So many issues would get a better crack at the apple if we didn’t have all this money flowing into Sacramento. Think about recommending this on Daily Kos. – promoted by SFBrianCL)

Cross-posted at Daily Kos

With the Katrina anniversary, there has been lots of talk about what government needs to do to protect citizens from another disaster. The other day, California Assemblymember John Laird told the Capitol Weekly, “We have less flood protection than they had in New Orleans. Sacramento is really not protected and the thousands of people who live here are at risk.” But this wasn’t a story about the anniversary, this was a report on how flood protection in California died a suspicious death in the legislature:

This week, just as Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata put on hold an eight-bill package of flood-protection legislation, one of his political committees received a $500,000 donation from the California Building Industry Association (CBIA), one of the package’s biggest opponents.

The donation is the single largest that a Perata committee has received since he became Senate leader in 2004.

In response, the California Majority Report noted, “As is the case with many policy areas that the legislature deals with, especially this time of year, eyebrows were raised about the timing of all of this.” In addition being a policy disaster that risks lives, these scandals harm people’s faith in government, decreasing participation in a vicious cycle that gives even more power to the special interests who run Sacramento.

In May, the Public Policy Institute of California polled on the issue (May 14-21, 2000 adult residents, +/- 2% MOE):

Do you think that campaign contributions are currently having a good effect or a bad effect on the public policy decisions made by state elected officials in Sacramento, or are campaign contributions making no difference?”

Good Effect	12%
Bad Effect	56%

The big money that controls Sacramento is so excessive, that it is easy to see why the polls show people realize how it is harming policy. If you check out yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle, you’ll see an editorial blasting the “nasty moves” that special interests used to kill flood control. It is easy to see why people who pay attention are disgusted by the way Sacramento operates like an auction.

Special Interests Killing Universal Health Care Legislation

Yesterday, the California Assembly passed historic Universal Health Care legislation. This bill would save $8 billion a year and at the same time provide insurance for 6 million Californians. Sounds too good to be true? Well here comes the but…

Insurers have spent $3.7 million in campaign contributions in California since 2005.  Governor Schwarzenegger, who alone has received $765,000 from health insurers, has said he will veto the bill.

The big money has a proven ability to stop sound policy, and so California will waste $8 billion a year so that 6 million less people will have health insurance.

Special Interests New Deregulation

Public safety and health care aren’t the only areas where big money dominates in Sacramento. While lawmakers are holding dozens of fundraisers as they wrap up the legislative session, AT&T lobbyists are hitting the jackpot:

The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) gave AT&T and smaller Verizon permission to raise telephone rates at will, even as a telecommunications deregulation bill — a bonanza for AT&T and a bane to consumers — sped toward passage in the state Senate, jammed with last-minute amendments. […]

AT&T, while publicly billing the deregulation as beneficial competition in the video market, has not promised any rate reductions or other specific consumer benefits. It has poured nearly $18 million into lobbying efforts over the last few months, and $500,000 into direct political contributions during this election cycle, noted FTCR. That does not include contribution pledges made during legislators’ mad dash of fund-raising during the last three weeks of the legislative session, which ends next Thursday. These contributions will not be known until after the hundreds of measures still coming to a vote are passed or killed.

Yes, it sounds exactly like what went on during electrical deregulation, but as with flood protection, government can’t learn from past mistakes when special interests are running the show.

Solution: Proposition 89

Proposition 89 is the Clean Money and Fair Elections initiative that California will vote on this November. Put on the ballot by the California Nurses Association of anti-Arnold fame, the proposal addresses that systematic problems that are holding back good policy on a wide array of issues. Here are the details of Proposition 89.

Strict contribution and expenditure limits
Prop. 89 ends the fundraising madness with constitutional limits so regular voters aren’t drowned out by big money.
* Proposition 89 bans contributions from lobbyists and state contractors
* Proposition 89 limits contributions from corporations, unions, and individuals to state candidates
* Proposition 89 limits corporation donations to initiatives to $10,000

Clean Money public financing of political campaigns
Prop. 89 levels the playing field so new candidates can win on their ideas, not
because of the money they raise.
* With Proposition 89, candidates who agree to spending limits and to take no private contributions qualify for public funding
* Under Proposition 89, $5 contributions from voters required to prove viability
* With Proposition 89, lean candidates receive enough to run competitive campaigns. They can’t raise money beyond public funds

Tough disclosure and enforcement for politicians
Prop. 89 stops candidates from hiding behind negative ads and punishes politicians who violate the law.
* Proposition 89 makes wealthy self-funded candidates disclose the amount of personal funds they will spend
* Under Proposition 89, publicly financed candidates must engage in debates
* Proposition 89 imposes mandatory jail time and provides for removal from office of candidates who break the law.

The Challenge

Of course, the special interests who dominate Sacramento are spending at least as much money to stop Proposition 89 as they spend for each issue where they want to dominate the debate. While we won’t have as much money as the opposition, what we do have is a great initiative, a reality-based argument, lots of supporters, and trusted organizations like the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, California Nurses, the Consumer Federation of California and the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights all aggressively and creatively working to pass the initiative.

We would also like to have your support. We have started a campaign blog to keep supporters up-to-date and would appreciate it if supporters would sign up for email updates. Thanks for reading all the way down.

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-11, CA-04, John Doolittle, Richard Pombo, Proposition 89, redistricting, health care, minimum wage, reform.

Governor’s Race

• Dan Ancona on Phil.
• Two new TV ads from Angelides’ team: one showing Schwarzenegger’s ties to Bush (see also this campaign press release, courtesy Randy Bayne), and one on Angelides’ support of the middle class.
• Julia has a quote from a Steve Maviglio piece concerning the Schwarzenegger team’s Bush/Cheneying of the press and some comments thereon.
• Bill to give one-time bump to minimum wage passes in election year, after Schwarzenegger threatens veto of indexed minimum wage. Angelides would support indexing, just like we do with the tax code. Great Analysis from Frank Russo.
• Even Daniel Weintraub has grudging respect for the Angelides budget plan. Julia has the commentary.
• Not entirely relevant, but amusing: Schwarzenegger in “Carnival in Rio”
• Schwarzenegger: Always willing to pander to the hard-line Republicans, but without the strength of his convictions in an election year.
• Schwarzenegger on Health Care: No plan, not now. Too hard. Maybe next year. Watch me pose.
• It’s election time, so Schwarzenegger pretends to care, unless you’re an extremist Republican, and then he really does care as long as nobody’s watching too closely.

Jerry McNerney / Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

• Veterans for McNerney
• Down With Tyranny asks why the DCCC is not helping either Jerry McNerney or Charlie Brown.
• It’s election time, so Paid-For Pombo pretends to care.
• Paid-For Pombo: Rubber-Stamp Bush Republican.
• Defenders of WildLife has a couple ads in the district. They’re really pretty good.
• I recently said to a friend of mine that the last 6 years could be described by the phrase: “I could not make this shit up.” Paid-For Pombo’s response to the massive oil pipeline leak on Alaska’s North Slope was to advocate for more drilling and fewer regulations. I could not make this shit up.

Charlie Brown / 15% Doolittle / CA-04

• If 15% Doolittle thinks stem cell research is immoral, will he pledge never to use any of the results? Well, even if he did, since when can you trust him?
• 15% Doolittle: After a sudden change hits a forest, the FIRST thing you want to do is rush in the clearcutters!
• Dump Doolittle raises a good point: when you’re focused on raking in the bribes and doling out the pork, you don’t do a very good job at anything else. Tough talk and wrapping yourself in the bloody flag does not make the country safer.
• Dump Doolittle has a great series of LTEs: One, two, three, four and five, six, seven, eight.
• 15% Doolittle: Corrupt or ineffective? Don’t worry, it’s an inclusive or.
• 15% Doolittle flips the bird to our planet.

Health Care

SB 840, a plan for universal health care, is coming up for a vote. This PowerPAC contribution explains why it’s important and has a link for you to contact your rep.

Propositions

The Prop 89 folks are having a blast showing why clean money is necessary.

Reformalicious

• Debra Bowen continues to do good work on voting integrity. Let’s get this woman elected to Secretary of State. And throw her some cash.
• D-Day on the bill trying to make corporations report all of their income to California, instead of hiding some. Will Schwarzenegger sign? More here.
• Bill Cavala on redistricting.
• D-Day has an interesting post up about possible voting and electoral reforms.
• Frank Russo has a great summary of the bill currently making its way through the legislature to kickstart a national popular vote for president.
• This came up in the context of a coordinated fear campaign by the Schwarzenegger team, but why exactly is Prop 13 a good idea again?

The Rest

• Badlands Journal has a great long piece up on water politics and policy in California. Whiskey’s for drinkin’, waters for fightin’ over.
• Randy Bayne (nice new theme on his blog) on the minimum wage bill.
• D-Day on Monet Politics: bills that look good from election-distance, but are really not all that impressive up close.
• Mmmmm, Burritos.
• A bill to include sexual orientation and gender identity in the verboten grounds for discrimination in California’s schools is slowly wending its way past the Republican bigots in the legislature.
• Endorsements for SF residents: Rescue Muni, and the SFDP.
• Sheila Kuehl on resources and the environment in the 2006 Budget.
• s9 at the MojoWire on the coming housing crunch.
• SoHum Parlance has some genuinely interesting thoughts on the Humboldt County marijuana industry.

(Some info from the Good People over at Yes on 89. – promoted by SFBrianCL)

Dan Walters has been covering Sacramento politics for decades. In California, state senate seats larger than congressional seats create a reality where the most populous state is the most expensive state when it comes to campaigning.

Last week, a solid measure for re-districting died in the legislature. The big money, special interests have a strangle-hold on Sacramento and won. Dan Walters wrote:

Redrawing their own districts to fix elections and insulate themselves from voters’ whims is generally and accurately regarded to be the most cynically self-serving act that state legislators can perform.

However, strangling redistricting reform after months of pledging to place it before voters and thus elevate the level of lawmakers’ civic standing may be even worse — and that’s exactly what California’s legislative leaders did late last week.

The comic-opera end to the redistricting saga — leaders of the Legislature’s two houses pointing fingers at each other while continuing to insist that they really wanted reform — confirmed anew that even the most jaundiced view about the petty, self-interested motives of California legislators is merely realism.

It should be evident to any even halfway objective observer that the Legislature is an abjectly dysfunctional body, chronically incapable of responding effectively to the issues that arise from a fast-growing, fast-changing state. That malaise has many roots, but one of them is the essentially closed nature of legislative politics, which are disconnected from the socioeconomic reality of the state and driven by the wishes of a relative handful of powerful interest groups.

If government assigns value to money, we have an auction. If goverment assigns value to people, we have a democracy. That is the goal behind clean money, the reason for Proposition 89. Prop. 89 ends the fundraising madness with constitutional limits so regular voters aren’t drowned out by big money. To return democracy to the voters and stop the Sacramento auction, Proposition 89 bans contributions from lobbyists and state contractors.

But more importantly, Proposition 89 levels the playing field so new candidates can win on their ideas, not because of the money they raise. With Proposition 89, candidates who agree to spending limits and to take no private contributions qualify for public funding.

Proposition 89 stops candidates from hiding behind negative ads and punishes politicians who violate the law. Prop 89 makes wealthy self-funded candidates disclose the amount of personal funds they will spend. Under Proposition 89, publicly financed candidates must engage in debates. Prop. 89 imposes mandatory jail time and provides for removal from office of candidates who break the law.

Sacramento is broken, even long time observes like Dan Walters are disgusted by what is going on. It isn’t the same-old, same-old — things have gotten worse.

This fall, we can reform Sacramento by passing
Proposition 89.

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Yes on Proposition 89 ~ Proposition 89 Blog
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