Is this the kind of government we want to leave for our kids and grandkids?
Are you sick and tired of our California government being held hostage to the special interests – the public employees unions, the prison-industrial complex, the utilities and Indian casinos?
Are you sick and tired of the billionaires and multi-millionaires buying their way into office knowing that nobody else can match their war chests – the Whitmans and Fiorinas, the Bloombergs and Schwarzeneggers?
Are you sick and tired of watching years-long grass-roots movements to improve our lives either get crushed or co-opted by the giant corporations – health care reform written by the insurance and drug industries; financial “reform” stymied or watered down by the banks and credit card companies; environmental regulations written by the polluters themselves?
On June 8, you and I can do something about all of this by voting YES on Proposition 15, a modest but crucial step to begin limiting the power of money in our government.
1. Are politicians bad people?
Of course not. We voted for them and sent them to do our work because we trusted them and they stood for some of the same things we stand for. But the high costs of political campaigns force officeholders – and those who want to run – to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to raise funds, often from sources they’d be better off avoiding.
And as Arnold Schwarzenegger said when he was first running for Governor, supposedly as a sort of reformer, “Any of those kinds of real big, powerful special interests, if you take money from them, you owe them something.” (Little did we know at the time that this statement was a blueprint for his own intentions.)
One of the lamer arguments I hear against fair elections / clean money is that we’re somehow rewarding the bad behavior of politicians. No, we’re simply freeing them up to do the job we chose them and hired them for: making the government and economy work for you and me.
2. Proposition 15 is a MODEST reform that won’t cost YOUR cheap ass a dime.
First off, let’s dispense with the idea that Prop 15 is some kind of tax – the opposition’s favorite lie to scare you away from it. Prop 15 is completely funded by an increase in the annual fees lobbyist have to pay to in order to have special access to our representatives’ ear. Currently that fee is a laughable TWELVE-and-a-half DOLLARS. Each year. Prop 15 would bring that up to $350 a year – which is what most of them make in one hour.
(A few lobbyists have told me personally that the money is no big deal. But their union – the IGA – is leading the opposition to Prop 15 on principle, because it will lead to an erosion of lobbyists’ power, and the power of those who can afford lobbyists.)
The proposal is modest in other ways – it only covers the race for Secretary of State, which makes sense as that is the office that oversees and regulates lobbyists. In order to qualify for these campaign funds, a candidate needs to collect a $5 contribution from a specified number of registered voters (just to show that they are a serious candidate, so we don’t start funding every Steve Rocco and Stan Fiala that pop up. For more boring details on how the plan will work, click here.)
Furthermore it’s a “pilot project,” for just the 2014 and 2018 elections; if we decide for any reason it’s not working out, it will sunset after that. By starting to collect the lobbyist fees this year, we have four years for the kitty to be plenty big enough for the 2014 election.
3. BUT it’s a crucial first step toward much greater reform in the future.
Not many people know this, but in 1988 crooked politicians Willie Brown and Governor Deukmejian managed to sneak a sentence into the California Constitution outlawing any public financing of elections; the sordid tale is here. The passage of Prop 15 will invalidate that sentence, making it possible for us to bring fair elections to other races when we want to.
For example, the insurance commissioner race could be funded by just a slight increase on insurance companies’ fees that those giant firms would hardly notice; but we would be guaranteed a commissioner that was not in their pocket. Likewise with the Board of Equalization races.
You could decide you wanted to start up a Fair Election type system in your own town or county – for city council or something, and you could run yourself – with enough public support – and not have to kiss up to developers and public employees unions!
In the future when California’s economy takes the inevitable turn toward the better, we may decide to bring the Fair Elections idea to the Governor’s race, or others. The fact is, this is not an expensive prospect at all, in order to have responsive honest governance. If every statewide race were covered by public financing, that would cost only $6 per year for each Californian over 18. That’s for us to finally have democracy in this state – now that’s something worth leaving our kids and grandkids!
4. It’s worked in other states and cities, and they’re lovin’ it!
Maine, Arizona, and Connecticut have all instituted Fair Elections for all statewide offices – Maine and Arizona since the year 2000. There was resistance at first, especially from Republicans (who “fear change?”) but after a little time everybody swears by it. And even though the systems are voluntary, at this point 85% of Maine officeholders, and 81% of Arizona’s, chose to run as Fair Election candidates. That’s from all parties.
And are there concrete results for the citizens of these states? Hell yes. Within a couple years of electing clean legislatures, Maine had a program for re-importing low-cost drugs from Canada – something that would never have been possible with the death grip Big Pharma keeps on traditional candidates. Arizona as well (whom we’ll look at again in a minute) managed to get through a low-cost prescription drug bill.
Other states have started modestly like we are, with just one office. North Carolina for example decided to start their Fair Elections experiment in 2008 with the office of Insurance Commissioner, and Wayne Goodwin managed to win a solid victory while refusing campaign contributions from any special interests. Within less than a year, Commissioner Goodwin determined that NC auto insurance companies had been illegally jacking up their rates, and managed a refund to NC citizens of $50 million.
This couldn’t have, wouldn’t have happened if Goodwin were elected with insurance money; and if it had the insurance companies would have BURIED him come re-election time.
5. Yes, Arizona has clean elections too!
Some Fair Elections activists are liberal types who furrow their brows and say “What about Arizona – look at what they’re doing to their immigrant population – should we even be bragging about their clean elections?” And I say, “Leave it to me – I can address that!”
First let me say that of course I’m against SB 1070, I think it’s unconstitutional, intrusive, un-American, a waste of law enforcement resources, and unavoidably racist. But I know this blog is read by a lot of supporters of SB 1070, and I want you lot to understand that:
SB 1070 would not have been possible without Fair Elections. It is not in the interest of any big-money commercial interests of Arizona, and if their candidates were in office they would have prevented it. It was a pure, desperate expression of the desires of Arizona voters, as wrong and exaggeratedly fearful as they may have been. And so, in the words of that old chant, we have to look at SB 1070 and say, “This is what democracy looks like!”
Two more thoughts about SB 1070:
- The silver lining is, it’s likely to turn out to be the impetus for the nationwide Comprehensive Immigration Reform we’ve needed for so long;
- and it also means more Arizona Hispanics need to get out and vote, for their own interests!
6. Peroration
Our Founding Fathers would have been scandalized at the exaggerated power big money and corporations have over the democratic system they created for us. The writings of Jefferson and Madison are chock full of dire warnings against exactly the sort of corrupt system we’ve allowed our nation to slide into – especially after the scandalous Supreme Court decision “People United” which if anything is going to open the flood gates of money even wider.
As you’ve seen, the path from Proposition 15 to a full Fair Elections system for our posterity is a long one of at least a decade; we’ve gotta keep our “eyes on the prize” like the soldier with the thousand-yard stare. But it’s an integral part of the Revolution for more democracy that our Founding Fathers began, which continued with the War against Slavery, Women’s Suffrage and the Civil Rights movement. This is OUR turn now, the struggle to free our democracy from the clutches of big money. Let’s not let them down now. Our Founding Fathers OR our kids and grandkids. VOTE YES ON PROP 15!
This state has a 20 billion dollar budget deficit and you think we should take MORE taxpayer money to pay for election campaigns? Balance the budget with spending cuts first and then maybe we can talk about doing something stupid like publicly funding elections. But until then, forget it.
Well, we all know Rick Moore is a hit-n-run commenter, so this won’t be any kind of dialogue. But I hope the rest of you, if you read my piece, can see how off-base his comment is.
The use of ANY taxpayer money is not part of Proposition 15, and if we ever went that route with public funding of other races, it would be years down the road. Exactly like Rick says.
Hey, Vern. Here’s where you’ll find those “lies” about using General Fund money and raising taxes: the text of Prop 15, which you’ll find on Page 73 of the Secretary of State’s Voter’s Guide. Section 91135: “Other sources of revenue to be deposited in the Fair Elections Fund SHALL include ALL (my caps) of the following…”(g) Any other sources of revenue from the General Fund or from other sources as determined by the Legislature.” We know what the General Fund is. It’s the same pot of money that pays teachers, cops and firefighters and is $19 billion short of paying for programs we already have. “Other sources” means anything the Legislature wants it to mean including new taxes and fees. After the last two tax increases, do you really doubt the legislature won’t shift the burden of raising money for their campaigns to the taxpayer? And when voters complain, they’ll say: “But you told us you wanted to use tax dollars for our campaigns when you passed Prop 15.” Reasonable people can disagree about publicly financed campaigns, but don’t accuse opponents of lying about Prop 15 when it’s clear you formed your opinion without reading it.
Hey, Dick —
Even IF all candidates for all California offices were funded by the public (you and me, rather than big money lobbyists) it would cost everyone a little less than the price of a movie ticket per year. Don’t you think it would be worth it to be able to elect people who don’t owe anybody else but the citizens any favors?
t. dragert
Richard –
You’ve got to be kidding!!! The CA legislature raising taxes????? Takes a 2/3 vote. Come on, get real here. Your fear mongering on this is a broken record. Anyway, Californians are not adverse to specific taxes raised for specific purposes they support. If the public likes the pilot project, the legislature MAY try to extend, and dollars to donuts if they do they will choose a funding scheme they believe the voters will support. They’re politicians after all. They all want to be re-elected and go on to higher office.
I plead guilty to using strong language because the stakes are so high. But for you (you paid spokesman) to take
“It’s not 100% sure that NO money for this project will have to come out of the general fund, although it’s very unlikely, and would show the pilot project to be a failure which would duly sunset after two elections”
and make that into:
“It will raise your taxes”
is… OK, I think I WILL call it a lie.
I’ll get back when I have time (unless one of my allies can do it first) to show just HOW unlikely it is that the SOS race would need any more than what will be collected from lobbyists over the next four years.
Number of lobbyists (and lobbying firms, and those who hire lobbyists)
MULTIPLIED BY $350
MULITPLIED BY FOUR YEARS
is carefully planned to OVERSHOOT the amount an SOS race could possibly cost in 2014 or 2018
if not, the amount left over to be taken from general fund, negligible. Would not translate into tax increase.
Someone fill that out? I’ve gotta run off to work.
Hope you’re not a hit-n-runner like Rick Moore, Rick Wiebe.
Yes, Prop 15 repeals the the ban on public financing of elections so that finally after a two decade ban in which our state has sunk to lower and lower levels, thanks to tax loopholes and corporate giveaways, we can finally install some representatives who can do something about it.
How do we know this? Because Fair Elections are successful and save taxpayers money in 8 states and 2 cities.
Every year in California, though, Californians become more disgusted with their representatives as taxpayer money that could go to our schools, or to firefighters, or to balance the budget is instead turned corporate payback.
By funding Fair Elections California stands to recover millions of dollars siphoned off by special interest making enormous returns on their lobbying “investments”.
A Yes on Prop 15 puts representatives into office who can focus on protecting Californians and not their own campaign war chests.
Actually the lobbyists themselves can prevent any chance of money being needed from the general fund, if they have integrity (and some of them do). Money would only potentially come from the general fund or other sources _if_ the increased fee on lobbyists is ruled to be a tax and therefore needs a 2/3 vote. All they need to do is not challenge the fee.
If the fee stands–and it will, if the lobbyists don’t challenge it–and there is insufficient money for the number of candidates, the amount that each candidate receives will be reduced proportionally, with candidates allowed to raise funds privately to make up the difference, only to the level of public funds that they would have been allowed.
Hurray for Nancy Neff finally telling it like it is. I think that we can “deflate” this favorite opposition argument even further: A lobbyist REGISTRATION FEE is really akin to all other professional registration fees -lawyers, physicians, beauticians, etc. Even if the challenge does come, there is thus very widespread precedent for professional registration fees. The California registration fee for lobbyist is currently ridiculously low. The Prop 15 adjustment would place the fee at the median for the nation (same as Illinois), and would still be less than for lawyers and physicians.
However, thanks again to Nancy Neff for clarifying exactly the financial parameters if the designation of lobbyist registration fee is incorporated into law.
Let’s remember that Prop 15 was put on the ballot by the state legislature — the same state legislature that increased taxes by $12.5 billion this year and which is considering another proposal to increase taxes by $5 billion next year. It’s also the same folks who wrote the ballot label for Prop 15 and “forgot” to mention that it repeals the ban on public campaign financing that voters enacted 22 years ago. That language is there today because a judge ordered it inserted — as the the first sentence.
The so-called “lobbyist fee” that proponents would have you believe will pay for Prop 15 is really a tax. By definition, a “fee” reimburses government for the actual cost of providing a service. It costs more to maintain the state’s fisheries than it does to process lobbyist registration forms, which is why fishing licenses cost more than lobbyist registration fees.
Courts in three states have ruled that similar lobbyist fees (or taxes) are unconstitutional. The courts have ruled states can’t single out a single group or profession to pay for something that provides a benefit to the general public. The Secretary of State does much more than register and regulate lobbyists. The courts have also held that singling out lobbyists for a special tax is an infringement of free speech, and they they have ruled that a “fee” can’t exceed the cost of providing the service. (Cases are summarized and cited at StopProp15.com)
The legislature was warned about the dubious legality of the lobbyist tax so they included the language cited in my original message giving them access to the General Fund. If Prop 15 passes and the lobbyist fee is stricken by the courts, we’ll have a mandate from voters to pay for campaigns with tax dollars, but no tax dollars. The legislature can tap the General Fund and/or impose new fees and taxes, and when people complain, they can say, “We’re doing what voters told us to do when they passed Prop 15.”
Yes, I’m a paid campaign spokesperson, but I also did my homework and I would be happy to point anyone to the actual language of Prop 15 or other source that supports what I say.
The opposition, led by Richard Wiebe, is just trying to scare people with a sound bite and half truths. And is forcing the policy wonks to rear their heads, but if you’ve read this far, here’s the deal.
True, the General Fund can be used, but Richard, there’s a lot of IF’s in between.
IF there’s not enough money from the lobbyists fees.
Response. The calculation is that lobbyists fees will raise enough money to pay for funding comparable to the last Secretary of State race.
IF lobbyists fees are ruled unconstitutional.
Response: The 9th District Court of Appeals recently overturned the lower court ruling that had called the Arizona fee unconstitutional.> Only one unconstitutionality ruling remains standing, a lower court ruling in Vermont.
These rulings applied to cases where fees were either burdensome – up to 5% of a lobbyists income – or where there was no relevance as to why the fee was being placed on lobbyists. Prop 15 proposes a reasonable fee on lobbyists and there is a direct nexus between lobbyists and the office where the funding is going. The Secretary of State is the official who watches over the lobbyist reporting scheme, both their registration and tracking their activity. The Secretary of State should be free from any possible influence due to lobbyist contributions or those from their employers.
And I must say we’re in this budget deficit BECAUSE of giveaways (tax and otherwise) to special interests.
The truth is: Prop. 15 is funded by a fee on lobbyists, not taxpayer money. That’s why the lobbyists are so opposed to this initiative – lobbyists have gotten their way in Sacramento and they don’t want to lose that influence.
One more thing – corporations have known the value of buying candidates and and we’ve seen the results – BP and Wall Street disaster, it’s time that the voters invest in candidates. When they do as we’ve seen in North Carolina and Connecticut, the General Fund and taxpayers are reimbursed many times over.
So stop scaring the voters with the General Fund argument. Vote for Prop 15
The Ninth Circuit decision had nothing to do with the lobbyist fee in Arizona. It addressed a free speech issue. The StopProp15 campaign hasn’t raised that issue because the courts will ultimately resolve it regardless of what voters do.
If you believe BP and Wall Street wouldn’t have happened if we had public campaign financing, you should go right ahead and vote for Prop 15.
Props on returning to the fray, Richard, but you sure picked a tiny nitpick. I’m assuming we’ve got you stymied on everything else.
Yeah, I DO think if we’d had clean, fair elections in place nationally for the last decade or two, it’s very unlikely we’d have ended up with the recent disasters either in Wall Street OR in the Gulf. That case is EASY to make.
In both cases, the industries were able to get away with riskier and riskier behavior until it blew up in all of our faces. In both cases, this was because of regulations being progressively loosened by friendly politicians over the years – politicians of both parites (tho mostly GOP) who were and are awash in oil and Wall Street money. As well as regulators cozy with the industry, who are put in place precisely to NOT do their jobs, by the same compromised politicians.
Yeah, that case is not hard to make at all. In fact, to anybody who’s not buried in the system as a political consultant, as you are, it’s simple common sense.
I believe I will take your endorsement seriously, and build a new article on it. Thank you, Richard.
The truth is, there are no taxes in Proposition 15. Proposition 15 has no effect on taxes. Proposition 15 doesn’t spend tax money.
A fee for lobbyists to run a program designed to minimize the more malignant effects of organized corporate lobbying is just that–a fee.
That said I’m not a lawyer and I could have misunderstood the 9th Circuit Court decision. However, opponents of 15 have filed two lawsuits against the initiative that have both been dismissed.
What’s clear is that the opposition’s legal claims rest on technicalities that are legally shaky at best.
Max,
See page 73 of your Voter’s Guide. Section 91135: “Other sources of revenue to be deposited in the Fair Elections Fund SHALL include ALL (my caps) of the following…”(g) Any other sources of revenue from the General Fund or from other sources as determined by the Legislature.”
Now why would they put that language in there if they didn’t intend to use General Fund (tax) money? And what are “other sources as determined by the Legislature?” If they really intended to limit funding to the revenue generated by the lobbyist tax, they could have written Prop 15 to do just that. They did exactly the opposite.
I’m not a lawyer either, but the Legislative Counsel is. You can find the Leg Counsel’s analysis of the legality of the lobbyist tax at:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_0551-0600/ab_583_cfa_20080830_134122_asm… 3/11/2010
Read that and ask yourself who’s really telling the truth here. Reasonable people may disagree philosophically over the merits of public financing, but I’ve sourced every one of our key points against Prop 15.
To Richard:
I have tried to go to your sources, and where found, have studied them. As a paid political consultant, it is painfully obvious and understandable why you have continued to divert attention from the critically important victories that voters would gain from Prop 15. After due (re)study, I find that I am even more persuaded that your advocacy against Prop 15 does squarely involve those time-honored diversionary scare tactics, which have reached such terrible heights during current times.
Your last source was not tractable, so I went to the latest analysis posted at the SOS site. There was nothing there (from the legislative analyst office) about the legality of the lobbyist fee. It is a small, but reasonable point to ask what “Legislative Consul” you are referring to. Consul for whom?
We knew from the beginning that you would be coming with the Prop 73 (1988) sentence. We will continue to advocate for 2010 voters, not 1988. Others here and elsewhere have eloquently spoken about that.
Regarding your consideration of fee vs tax, do you really wish to maintain that the annual state REGISTRATION fees for lawyers and physicians are calculated purely on the “cost” to the STATE, and only for providing a public service? By contrast, it appears that you wish to restrict the cost of lobbyist/lobbyist organization registration fees just to the cost of printing registration forms!
Here are a couple of individually small facts about the attempted diversionary construction of your sand castle: a) By law, the ballot label and summary are constructed, after submission, by the AG’s office, not by the “folks” in the legislature; and b) The judge that you refer to also ruled that your side’s ballot statement about individual income tax had to be removed from the ballot statement. But no, as expected, you remain undaunted in continuing to broadcast that myth to the public. The judge also declared that there was not sufficient time to rule on removing “taxes” altogether.
There are a lot more “ifs” assumptions than Max Norton has stated between whether and what “sources” the legislature would “determine”, rather than putting qualifying candidates on their own to raise up to the limit that they would have gotten from the fund should the fund come up short.
As others have also begun to pick up on, there are hop, skip and broad jump(s) backward that you make between what the legislature might “determine” and stating that the tax payer’s money would be taken, at the expense of urgent societal needs. This is, in fact, an intense castle-in-the-sand scare tactic right up there with all the other no sayer campaigns and legislative actions so intensely controlled by big money corporatocracy.
So, your “claims” and “research” notwithstanding, as Max Norton stated earlier, ” The truth is, there are no taxes in Proposition 15. Proposition 15 has no effect on taxes. Proposition 15 doesn’t spend tax money. ”
Let the voters know the truth(s).
“No taxes in prop 15”
Ya right.
The government collects money by taxation. Also tax(ation) can be called by its other names.
Fee, duty, levy, toll, excise, tariff etc.
Prop 15 calls for fees (a tax) and calls for qualifying contributions (mandatory)
I don’t care that the lobbyists and political parties would have to pay these taxes.
But it 100 percent lifts the entire ban on political machines getting unlimited taxpayer funds to spend on themselves. AND even tho there is a drop dead date, that can be removed with a minor party line vote and all offices can join in on the feeding frenzy (All offices of state county and local).
The best part is the funding mechanism has been tossed out by the courts in other states that has tried the exact same BS thing.
“”””
However, these laws have increasingly run into constitutional problems in the Courts. Substantial portions of the Vermont system were found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Randall v. Sorrell. Connecticut’s statute was held unconstitutional in August, 2009, on grounds that it unfairly discriminated against third party and independent candidates.[1] A stay was granted and the Connecticut law is pending appeal. On January 15, 2010, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona issued a proposed order in McCommish v. Bennett finding portions of the Arizona plan unconstitutional.[2]
Massachusetts the system was repealed, a pilot program adopted by the New Jersey …was abandoned, and defeated in California in 2006 by 74.3%. “”””
Prop 15 is a big fat lie.
Why not just TAX the political machines campaign accounts, they seem to be able to raise plenty of funds already, and all this dirty money is use to buy votes.