CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2017, OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2017, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“BROKEN APART, DISCLOSE ACT STILL VITAL FOR PUBLIC TRUST”
“Give
light and the people will find their own way.” – longtime slogan of the now-defunct Scripps Howard Newspapers group.
The essence of that motto, written early
in the last century, was a strong belief that if Americans know enough about an
issue or politician or political choice, they will act in their own
self-interest.
Sadly, this conviction has not been
tested much in recent years. The advent of social media like Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram provides Americans and others with more information than ever,
but much of it is bogus, what President Trump likes to call “fake news.”
Especially since outfits like Scripps
Howard and the Knight publishing company disappeared from the landscape, along
with many family owned newspapers, there’s less of the reliable, hard news that
reporters can gather only by expending shoe leather and persistence.
And since the 2010 Citizens United
decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, it’s been difficult for anyone to know the
true funders of the frequent messages, commercials and other ads conveyed via
television, radio, social media and those newspapers that still try to inform
the public.
That’s why for much of this decade,
the most important proposal before the California Legislature has been a bill
known as the Disclose Act, most actively pushed by an organization called the
Clean Money Campaign.
As first conceived, this proposed law
would require disclosure of the leading funders of all political advertising
and ballot initiative petitions in large letters, one version of the idea demanding
those names be listed in lettering that matches the largest type used anywhere
else in the same advertisement.
This plan has now been broken apart a
bit. One part, covering only initiative petitions, passed both the state Senate
and a key Assembly committee before the Legislature’s annual midsummer break. This
one would force all initiative petitions to carry the names of their three top
funders in large letters in a prominent location. It would also not allow big-money
interests to hide behind vague committee names like “Californians Against New
Taxes” or the like.
But once an initiative makes the
ballot, becoming an actual proposition, there would be no more such
information. So-called “dark money” contributors could go back into hiding.
But not if another part of the
proposal should pass. This bill, carried by former Democratic Assemblyman Jimmy
Gomez of East Los Angeles until his summertime election to Congress, would
require large-letter donor disclosures in all ads for both candidates and
propositions.
While there appear to be few obstacles
to eventual passage of the bill covering initiative petitions, the outlook may
not be as rosy for its wider-ranging companion.
When Gomez left for Congress, there was
temporarily no legislative sponsor for this measure. Only at the last moment
did the Senate Rules Committee, led by Democratic Senate President Kevin de
Leon of Los Angeles, OK a bid by San Mateo’s Democratic Assemblyman Kevin
Mullin to be the necessary sponsor.
The fact this non-dispute went on
awhile cost the bill precious time, reducing chances of passage this summer. It’s
true there’s some potential for it to pass this fall or next year, but next year
is an election year and labor unions which fund many Democratic campaigns
oppose this plan.
So it’s safe to say the real meat of
the Disclose Act – prominent disclosure of the largest contributors in all
political ads – is not exactly a high priority for de Leon and other
legislative leaders, even though he and others nominally support the idea.
Fully 12,000 persons petitioned the
Rules Committee to allow Mullin to become the latest Disclose Act sponsor, with
1,500 persons telephoning the committee, too. It will likely take much more
support than that to push this idealistic measure through a Legislature still
patting itself on the back for extending cap-and-trade environmental tactics to
cut greenhouse gases.
Which very likely means yet another
election season will go by without a thorough test of that old Scripps Howard
motto.
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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, 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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