JUST SAYIN’-Californians, and perhaps especially Angelinos, have for years been pushing for Clean Money legislation—long before the Citizens United and (more recent) McCutcheon decisions.
Years ago, people like Carole Lutness from AD 38 was running for State Assembly and was impassioned when she spoke about our need to change the way politics is run. She used her bully pulpit to inform (and others followed suit). Lawmakers like Julia Brownley, Loni Hancock, Mark Leno, Jerry Hill, Fran Pavley, and Ted Lieu have long been united in that crusade for political purity.
The way it stands now, the “ordinary, little people” like you and me cannot afford to run for higher office. Years ago, many people wanted me (as a long-time teacher) to run for LA School Board. I would have loved to have run—certainly I had the qualifications and great concepts to advance, but when I realized the outrageous costs that would have to be incurred, I had to pass on the idea. Do you realize that when Tamar Galatzan first ran for School Board, her campaign expended more than one million dollars?!
At the least, a freshman candidate is expected to infuse the seed funding with thousands of personal dollars (which don’t nearly address the basics like salaries of staff and rent for campaign headquarters). This process locks out far too many otherwise viable potential candidates.
Essentially, candidates have to sell themselves (figuratively, if not literally) to a mish-mash of organizations to get endorsements and donations—all of which likely expect some form of quid pro quo. Even Jerry Brown (as well-known as he was--some decades back) ran for President in a righteous, “unbeholden” race, asking for $5 and $10 grass-roots donations, yet he had no chance of running a winning campaign without funding parity (remember, this was a time before the social media that Barack Obama used).
Often the respective parties only “earmark” their considerable means behind tried-and-true candidates and don’t take the chance on those who otherwise might be rising stars. It’s like a Catch 22: We’ll support you if you’re a winner but it is unlikely that you will win if we don’t support you.
As it stands, we are losing a broad swath of the citizenry (because of the absence of public funding) who have a lot to offer and are highly qualified to run for office.
The effort for clean money was stood on its head by the Citizens United 2010 decision by the
U. S. Supreme Court, let alone by the further fracture resulting from McCutcheon.
Clean money is a relatively simple concept: In California the Disclose Act “would improve disclosure on political advertisements to help voters make well-informed decisions and have greater confidence in the electoral process.” In so doing, the top advertisers would have to be “clearly and prominently” listed on all ads—thus no surprises after the fact. For example, the Mormon Church put millions of dollars into ads (filled with distortions) for Proposition 8 (eventually overturned) to deny same-sex couples in California the right to marry legally, yet most of us had no idea until after the vote was in.
The Citizens United ruling permits, with certain stipulations, virtually limitless corporate spending in elections, justifying the view that corporations are people with the right of free speech and that monetary expenditures is one method of expression.
McCutcheon (2014) is basically a sequel or addendum to Citizens United. It expands upon the earlier ruling and “strikes down overall limits on campaign contributions.” Essentially, though there is still a limit to how much can be donated per campaign, there is no longer a limit on how many campaigns can be recipients of funding—hence, millionaires and corporations can donate to campaigns in every state in the Union and/or by multiples per state.
Los Angeles (like San Francisco) has long demonstrated its progressive leadership, acting as a role model for the rest of the State and the nation. Last year, in an effort to reverse the impact of the above rulings, Angelinos overwhelmingly supported Proposition C to ask Congress to pass a Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Citizens ruling. Angelinos have “spoken loud and clear that they want big money out of our elections.”
So with what are we faced today?!
Big corporations, which often have projects “underwritten” by the Federal Government at zero interest and turn around to make millions (if not billions) of dollars in profit, are in a position to pour huge sums into lobbying teams to push for legislation which will accrue huge profits for their shareholders.
Underrepresented groups (such as students and minorities; such as the arts and sciences), on the other hand, have little to no money for effective lobbying (short of the efforts of grassroots movements).
It should be clear why the novitiate candidate is at a severe disadvantage. There is virtually an incestuous plutocratic oligarchy among the more prominent electeds and their staff and the more prominent want-to-be candidates. They play musical chairs with political office: one becomes an Assemblymember and terms out to run for City Council while the City Councilmember becomes a Congressmember and a staff person runs for the empty Assembly seat. These people support each other by means of power, political pressure, the “club” mentality, and the ability to raise large sums of money. Yes, many of these individuals have made outstanding lawmakers (and I know many of them), but those on the outside have very little chance of getting in. Is it any wonder that we have only 20 women Senators in today’s Congress?
What we need are publicly funded, subsidized campaigns with a limit as to how much can be spent (I am not going to discuss the details of this approach here). Did you know that you now can set aside a certain amount of money through your Federal tax filings for public campaign funds, let alone for certain charities?
That is good but we need to go far beyond that concept. We can only truly get dirty money out of campaigns if we disallow big-moneyed private and corporate contributions. We cannot allow the likes of the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson to use the power behind their money to determine electoral outcomes. What is a further abuse is the methods these money ogres (excuse me, Shrek) utilize which force the candidates and issues-supporters that they oppose, to have to raise ever larger sums of money to combat the deluge of big money’s bottomless contributions. As it is, lawmakers with two-year terms, in particular, are forced from day one of taking office to begin fund-raising rounds for the next campaigns.
If we are truly a free society, our elections must demonstrably be democratic and open. We must elect candidates and vote for issues on the basis of the actual facts. It can no longer be tolerated or in any way acceptable for distortion or ulterior motive to be part of any race. And big money never more (thank you, Raven) can be a part of this!
Just sayin’.
(Rosemary Jenkins is a Democratic activist and chair of the Northeast Valley Green Alliance. Jenkins has written Leticia in Her Wedding Dress and Other Poems, A Quick-and-Easy Reference to Correct Grammar and Composition and Vignettes for Understanding Literary and Related Concepts. She also writes for CityWatch.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 34
Pub: Apr 25, 2014