CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 2015, OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 2015, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“BIT BY BIT, ‘DISCLOSE ACT’ BECOMES MORE
REAL”
If there’s one main reason for the
distrust many Californians feel for government and elected officials at all
levels, it may be the way special interests from corporations to labor unions
to individual billionaires pour millions of dollars into elections campaigns
while hiding their identities.
Almost five years ago, Julia Brownley,
then an obscure assemblywoman and now a Democratic congresswoman from Ventura
County, began trying to get state legislators to fix a bit of that.
Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s
infamous Citizens United decision, it’s impossible to stop these groups from
pouring as much money as they like into campaigns, both for individuals and
initiatives. But there are ways to force disclosure of their identities even
when they’d like to remain anonymous.
So Brownley sponsored something backers
called the “Disclose Act,” aiming to force disclosure of the sources for all
significant campaign donations. The reasoning was that if voters knew, for
instance, that Chevron Corp. was the leading donor to the “no” side of an
initiative campaign about putting a tax on oil drilling, they might be a bit
more skeptical of whatever arguments are made in TV commercials.
As it stands, companies like Chevron,
Exxon, Tesoro and Valero can create and donate to campaign committees with
benign names like Californians Against New Taxes without much muss or fuss.
The Disclose Act would require such
committees to reveal the three leading donors behind each political newspaper,
TV or radio ad, lifting the fig leaf that has long obscured who’s doing what.
It would also compel nonprofits funneling money into campaigns from anonymous
donors to reveal their identities.
But
it failed in 2011, and Brownley went on to Congress, where she’s in her second
term. That left backers to find new sponsors for the Disclose Act and they’ve
done so each year since.
Meanwhile, bit by bit, the ideas in
the Disclose Act are moving toward reality. The first movement came with a 2014
state Senate bill known as SB27, which passed in part because of outrage over
an out-of-state non-profit dumping $11 million into California campaigns at the
last moment before the November 2012 election. Even though the state Fair
Political Practices Commission fined that Arizona-based outfit $1 million, it
wasn’t forced to disclose names, even after the election.
In response, almost two years later,
Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB27, forcing non-profits to disclose the sources of
their so-called “Dark Money” on the secretary of state’s website.
That’s a help, but it’s not enough.
Most voters will never take the trouble to look on that website for the
information. A more direct approach is needed.
Enter this year’s version of the
Disclose Act, known as AB700 and sponsored by Democratic Assemblymen Marc
Levine of San Rafael and Jimmy Gomez of northeast Los Angeles. This bill would
compel political ads to disclose their top three funders clearly and
unambiguously in the ads. The funders disclosed must be the original ones, not
dummy committees like those used in the past to mask their activity by interests
from labor unions to tobacco, chemical and oil companies, not to mention
wealthy individuals.
The disclosure would have to come in
large letters at the beginning of TV ads, not in fine print at the close,
where no one is likely to notice. That way, voters would know who is behind a
message while they're seeing and hearing it.
This isn’t quite as radical an idea as
one that surfaced in a 1990s-era initiative that would have required similar
disclosure in type matching the largest and most colorful contained in any ad
or commercial.
Maybe that’s why the Assembly
Election Committee passed it last month on a 4-2 vote.
That vote meant the idea of disclosing
top donors prominently has already gotten farther toward becoming law than ever
before. It’s a tactic vitally needed in an era of unfettered spending by
wealthy interests on all sides of the political spectrum. If spending can’t be
limited, at least voters should know who’s doing it.
So bit by bit, key elements of the
original Disclose Act may well become reality. And the more the better,
hopefully in plenty of time for next year’s initiative-loaded elections.
-30-
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, go to 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, go to www.californiafocus.net
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