CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 2014 OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 2014 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“FUNDRAISING
BLACKOUT ONE SMALL STEP TOWARD TRUST”
With
polls showing Californians distrust their state government more than citizens
of almost any other state, it’s high time legislators at least began taking
small steps toward earning back some of the public faith they have squandered.
One way to start might be to adopt an
idea advanced this spring by Democratic state Sen. Alex Padilla of Los Angeles,
now a candidate to become secretary of state, California’s chief elections
officer.
Even before the spring corruption
indictments of fellow Democratic Sens. Ron Calderon of Montebello and Leland
Yee of San Francisco, Padilla realized that one of the least seemly things
lawmakers now do is raise campaign dollars right when they are deciding how to
vote on important bills.
Even for the rare senator or Assembly
member strong enough to heed the half-century-old advice of former Assembly
Speaker Jesse Unruh (“If you can’t drink their booze, (sleep with) their women,
eat their food and then vote against them, you don’t belong in politics.”),
decision-time fund-raising still looks bad and erodes public trust.
Especially when a legislator then
votes precisely the way big-money special interest donors want. It’s often a
“which came first, the chicken or the egg” question when trying to determine
whether lawmakers attract special interest support because of their own voting
proclivities or vote the way they do because of special interest donations.
Whichever, the practice stinks and looks terrible.
So Padilla proposes to ban campaign
contributions to lawmakers during the final 100 days of each legislative session.
That’s not as extreme as forbidding donations during the entire session, but
the longer ban (legislative sessions run seven or eight months yearly) might be
impractical. For sure, outlawing donations for entire sessions could put
legislators seeking reelection at a disadvantage against challengers not
subject to a ban, while leaving millionaire self-funded candidates with an even
bigger advantage than they often enjoy now.
A shorter, 100-day ban is something
incumbents could live with. They usually enjoy huge advantages over challengers
in both fund-raising and the name-recognition that’s so important to political
survival in a large state where most voters never lay eyes on a candidate.
But some of Sacramento’s most prolific
fund-raisers say it wouldn’t change much if either fundraising during entire
sessions or during the finishing rush were outlawed.
“It’s just rearranging deck chairs on
the Titanic,” said Dan Weitzman, who gathers funds for major Democrats. “This
simply front-loads fund-raising. You’d simply tell people on July 1 to mail
their checks in on Sept. 1 or Sept. 15 or whenever the session ends. Everyone
would know it was coming.”
Adds Democratic consultant Steve
Maviglio, a onetime press secretary for ex-Gov. Gray Davis who has worked for
three Assembly speakers and run many initiative campaigns, “The concept is
great, but the reality is not workable. This would be nothing more than a
Band-Aid at best. I favor full disclosure of all donations within 24 hours
instead; then everyone will know who’s getting what from whom.”
But past history indicates that even
if donations were posted immediately, very few voters would check on them.
Still,
it’s clear the public wants some kind of action to clean things up in
Sacramento, where almost 3 million Californians today languish with no Senate
representation at all because their convicted or indicted representatives are
suspended while trying to fight off corruption and perjury charges against
them.
So why not start with a small step
like Padilla’s proposal? The one thing it would do is keep legislators from
staging fund-raising events during the times they cast their most important
votes. It is conceivable that not having to confront their big donors might
make it a little easier for them to get back to basics, and actually vote their
consciences or their constituents’ best interests.
Doesn’t sound like much, but it could
at least lend a little more of the appearance of propriety to a polluted
political environment. That’s better than doing no cleanup at all, which is
what has happened so far amid all the pious talk of regaining public
confidence.
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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
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