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California Common Cause and the Sierra Club are jointly sponsoring a grassroots conference on the public financing of elections in the state of California. To be held in Oakland, Ca. on Saturday, October 16 the conference will feature Tom Volgy former mayor of Tucson, Arizona speaking on the subject of the "Arizona Miracle", the passing of full public financing of all statewide elections in Arizona. In addition Joan Mandle of East Bay Common Cause will be speaking on the efforts to get partial public financing for Oakland municipal elections and Craig Holman of the Center for Governmental Studies and an expert on state and local public financing will speak on "How Others Do It: Cities with Public Financing." In a burst of enthusiasm five of your fellow Alliance members have volunteered
to attend this conference at their own expense (air fare & hotel costs).
Conference attendees are Joy Leibbrandt, Cathy O'Leary, Betty Hampton,
Cliff McReynolds and Roland Bleu. In addition to the above members, Alliance
president David Diehl will also attend with his airfare expenses ($151.00)
covered by the Alliance.
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When the six Alliance delegates go to Oakland for the campaign finance conference they will take with them more than just open minds. In their possession will be copies of our proposed San Diego Clean Election Act. Our San Diego effort is unique in that no other effort in California calls for full public financing of local elections. California Common Cause, the leading grassroots group in the state regarding campaign finance reform, has yet to call for full public financing and currently supports partial public funding on a matching basis with private contributions. In written comments on the Act, Common Cause said that although they have never supported full public financing of elections it was only because they had never been asked to do so. We intend to give them the chance to move forward to true campaign finance reform by getting rid of all private money in campaigns. As comments from groups and individuals come in regarding the draft San Diego Clean Elections Act we have been making changes of both a substantive and procedural nature. Recently added to the Act is a section requiring electronic disclosure of all lobbying efforts on any matter being discussed by the San Diego City Council. We are also working on rules for the public debate section of the Act that would insure that true debate takes place between the candidates. Interestingly, the experience of drafting a law based on the very best
ideas that come in shows how the legislative process should really work.
Were we beholden to any special interests, provisions of the Act would
probably reflect their needs instead of the public's. I would recommend
our drafting process to any cynical legislator tired of being a puppet
of special interests. He or she would find that this type of honesty is
like a refreshing breeze.
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By Cliff McReynolds If you are reasonably well informed, you must wonder how important laws get passed sometimes without your knowledge. I know I do. I never heard of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 for example, until a year after it became law. Turns out that's no accident. Congress could have, and should have sold digital T.V. licenses to the networks, for 70 billion dollars or so. After all, the digital spectrum is public property, meaning it belongs to you and me. Nevertheless, legislators chose to give it away, in exchange for bribes - excuse me - campaign contributions of approximately 4.7 million dollars. Reed Hundt, then head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), called this Act "the biggest corporate giveaway of this century." It's also why our phone and cable rates are soaring. Continued on page 2. Naturally neither Congress nor the networks were interested in letting the public in on this con. The networks were especially effective in keeping us ignorant It took nine months for the Telecommunications Act to make its way through Congress, from May, 1995 to Feb., 1996. During that period media researcher Dean Alger tracked the amount of time the networks devoted to the story. And the total? Nineteen minutes. And not one second of this time was given to the debate over whether broadcasters should pay for use of the digital spectrum. A variation on this theme is the Three Strikes Law, passed three years ago in California. As with most issues, there are two sides (at least). We only heard one, and again it was no accident. The Republican party contributed $422,000 to get Three Strikes passed, the N.R.A. $100,000, the Prison Guards Union (CCPLA) $100,000 and Michael Huffington $350,000. Those in favor of this legislation outspent those opposed 58-1. In other words, you |
and I only heard the argument of those supporting Three
Strikes legislation. They also lied repeatedly, telling us that the father
of murdered teenager Polly Klaas favored the Three Strikes Law, knowing
that he was deeply opposed to it. (Since this law passed by the way, violent
crime in California has declined 15% about the same as in many other states
without Three Strikes laws.)
The Supreme Court has ruled that money, i.e. campaign contributions, is a form of speech, giving a new - and presumably unintended - meaning to the old saying that "money talks." [Ed. note but see Justice Souter's recent heartening expression that "money is property"] The trouble is, people like you and I do not have a spare two or three hundred thousand dollars to drown out an opposing message, nor keep us uninformed the way the networks, Michael Huffington and the N.R.A. can, and do. And we certainly lack the millions corporations give to the campaigns of lawmakers in exchange for the laws they want. I don't want to shock you, but "our representatives" are unlikely to voluntarily renounce taking money from those rich enough to buy their votes, provide them free rides on corporate jets, free vacations in Hawaii disguised as fact-finding tours and all the rest. After all, they wrote these laws, and they paid particular attention to the nuances of campaign financing. Why? To make sure the money river continues flowing to them. Why? To make sure they get reelected. And they do; incumbents are reelected 90% of the time, mostly because they outspend their challengers about 5-1. Still, fed up citizens are forcing change. States as diverse as Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Arizona have mandated that the people will hereafter finance the campaigns of those seeking office. And guess what? Legislators in these states are suddenly focusing laser-like on the genuine concerns of the people who elected them. Although other states and cities too (i.e. California, and of course San Diego ) are working to implement publicly financed campaigns, replacing the present plutocracy with democracy won't be easy; as I've suggested, the greedy and the powerful may not pick up their marbles and go home willingly any time soon. Nevertheless, reform is inevitable; Americans just don't like being kept in the dark, lied to, treated like fools, and robbed. In other words, people just don't like being screwed. |
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By Mel Shapiro - Chair, Research Committee
Karen McElliott is a member of the Qualcomm Stadium Advisory Board. She is also a candidate for the San Diego City Council, 5th. district. Information provided to me shows that she committed at least 17 violations of state and local campaign laws. Every violation is a misdemeanor: 1.) City Ordinance 27.2947; Prohibits business contributions to a council candidate. I have in my possession the invitation from Cox Communications showing them holding a fund-raiser for her on July 27, 1999. (Editor's Note: Cox Communications has a license from the City to provide cable service in San Diego) 2.) Government Code 84211: States that non-monetary contributions
must be reported.
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A page for these contributions is in the reporting form
which is filed with the San Diego City Clerk. The page is blank. But I have
invitations from:
But 6 of the 8 persons mentioned in item 2 donated $250 in addition to their non-monetary contributions. So they are over the limit. 4.) Government Code 84211: States that contributions to other candidates must be reported. A page is set aside for this in the report. The page is blank. But other campaign reports show candidate McElliot contributed to candidates Pam Slater, Barbara Warden, Charlene Zettel and Casey Gwinn. Gwinn, of course, is the San Diego CityAttorney, who is charged with prosecuting campaign violations. He is aware of all the violations. |
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one of the fundamental principles of campaign finance regulation
-- whether and to what extent the government may regulate political contributions
consistent with the First Amendment. The case deals specifically with a
challenge by a conservative group known as "Shrink PAC" to a Missouri law
that limits the amount each donor may give to a statewide candidate.
[See the text of the decision at Nixon v Shrink Missouri Government PAC
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In recent weeks there has been a whirlwind of press stories about the actor and long-time political activist, Warren Beatty, and his possible presidential ambitions. The most notable entry came from Beatty himself, in the form of an essay published in August in the New York Times. Our favorite part: Beatty said |
he wanted to "help persuade the slightly more liberal one of the
two accounting firms we call our major parties to return to the principles
of the Democratic party of my youth." Beatty said he was interested in providing
univeral health care and lifting up the poor, protecting the environment
and improving public schools. To do that, he wrote, "We must have complete
public financing of all federal campaigns."
(Reprinted from Public Campaign) |
| Here's how presidential candidate George W. Bush describes
the meaning of his record breaking $37 million dollar war-chest, raised
in a scant four months. "It's amazing that we've now got nearly 80,000 Americans
who've said we want George W. to be the president. It's a huge groundswell.
The people are speaking. And for that I'm incredibly grateful." As for the
"Pioneers," the hundreds of high-rollers who have committed to each raising
at least $1000,000 toward his election, he says, "This is a grassroots organization.
These are people who've decided to take time out of their lives to help
me become the president. And I am really grateful and very humbled by the
outpouring of support." The people are speaking. Grassroots.
Will someone please call George Orwell? Vice President Al gore, whose $19 million pile would normally look impressive, wants to put the same 'aw shucks' spin on his fundraising claiming that 85 percent of the more than 65,5000 contributors in the second quarter gave $200 or less.
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In fact, these figures have nothing to do with broad grassroots
support. According to a Washington Post analysis, 80 percent of the funds
collected by both Bush and Gore have come in the form of $1,000 checks,
not small contributions. Barely 5 percent of Bush's lode came in contributions
of under $200, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Gore did
scarcely better, will 11 percent of his haul coming from small donors.
Let's get one thing straight. The "nearly 80,000" people who have donated to George Bush are not representative of the country as a whole. Eighty thousand is about three one-hundredths of 1 percent of our total population of 270 million people. You can do the same the same math for Gore. Right now, a tiny elite is voting with its dollars on who should be the nominees of the republican and Democratic parties. And the rest of us are bystanders (Reprinted in part from 8-4-99 editorial from Public Campaign) |