A wall of deniability exists.
I always notice when the name of my pal Julio Pérez, candidate for Assembly District 69, pops up on the Nooner. And yesterday, I saw that an Independent Expenditure of $13,641 had been reported OPPOSING my man, from some group called Californians Allied For Patient Protection.
Don’t you just love the names of these groups?
So who IS this group of regular Californians, who have come together to form an alliance to somehow Protect Patients, by attacking certain candidates?
Turns out they are one of several Big Insurance front groups, operating Independent Expenditure committees under innocuous-sounding names to spend millions influencing our California political races. Specifically THIS group is the political action committee of CAPP, which is largely funded by medical malpractice insurance companies and focuses on the state’s malpractice laws. Says consumer advocate Doug Heller:
“It’s not enough that insurance companies charge us an arm and a leg at every turn. They want more. Insurers are moving millions into California campaigns in order to return many times their investment back into their coffers through preferable legislation and initiative results.”
So the attacks should be coming fast and furious between now and the June 5 primary, some by mail, some by robocalls, some on local TV, and perhaps some more on deceptive push polls. The thing to remember here is that when you Santa Ana and Anaheim voters see something from Californians Allied for Patient Protection, it’s really from the big insurance companies.
Julio Pérez - Big Insurance don't like him.
What does Big Insurance fear from Julio, and what do they hope to gain from his opponent Tom Daly? When I called Julio the first thing he did was to laugh at how small-potatoes this particular expenditure is compared to the hundreds of thousands the Chamber of Commerce and “JOBSpac” have poured in to supporting Tom and opposing him – apparently more than in any other Assembly race in the state! So I’ll be writing another article about that once I receive all the material his folks are sending me.
But regarding insurance: Julio has always been known as a protector of consumers, and specifically he supports Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones‘ efforts to rein in excessive premium increases; conversely, Dave is one of Julio’s major backers as well.
Meanwhile Tom Daly is the anointed successor of current termed-out Assemblyman José Solorio, an insurance handmaiden who was crucial in killing Dave Jones’ efforts.
But someone brought up another interesting question: Why is it that OC Democratic Party chair Frank Barbaro, a TRIAL LAWYER by profession, continues to support Daly so strongly over Pérez, when the forces fighting against his profession – medical malpractice insurance companies – are so clearly in Daly’s camp? Not that Barbaro wields all that much influence any more, the old figurehead…
I cannot think of a better compliment to Julio Perez — and a better reason for people to vote for him — than the fact that all of the people who want to extract unreasonable amounts of money from California workers and consumers consider him Enemy #1.
At this point, I think that it’s Daly and Perez coming in 1 & 2 in June pretty much no matter what, so people can save their money.
Paco Barragan is the Matt Rowe of the race — a good guy who doesn’t yet have the history and connections to win. I hope he’ll run against Bustamante.
Joe Moreno has been largely neutralized by Daly’s mailer to Republicans that as I understand it says that Moreno’s no longer in the race. You may have seen his letter to the Register (which he’s said we can reprint here), the one that starts off:
(Are you going to write about that, or am I?)
As for Michele — as predicted, she was being used by the anti-Perez forces, and now that we’re at the end she’s been abandoned as the money all goes towards Daly. I’m not happy with how Michele has run the campaign, but she’s ultimately a decent person who should not have been used in this way. I presume that she’ll end up endorsing Julio rather than killing off her career by choosing a conservative Anglo to lead this most-Latino district as opposed to a Latino firebrand whose agenda is much like hers was when I met her five years ago.
The special interests can relax. Julio will be just one Assemblyman — he can’t ram through consumer and pro-worker legislation all on his own! He’ll have to convince lots of other people to hang tough and go along with him!
OK, maybe they should worry — he’s awfully good at that!
I wanna do the Joe thing … you’ve been doing enough! I’m glad you’re calling him Joe now because
1. That’s what he wants to be called;
2. He’s a Republican trying to get Republican votes, and the less Latino he sounds the better he’ll probably do; and
3. It makes him sound less like that Santa Ana education guy Jose Moreno.
We sure were off, some of us anyway, when we paranoidly thought that his last-minute entrance into the race was some dirty trick of Daly’s to split the Latino/Anaheim vote. He really seems like an honest guy. I’ll write about him.
PS I’m thinking also of our own “Junior” – the anonymous commenter whose identity everyone knows, who signed Moreno’s papers even though he knew Moreno couldn’t win, because he thought it would be a real clever way to help Tom Daly, whom he actually prefers. HA! HA!
Corporations are people too, and therefore have a right to spend any amount of money to get their political election free speech out. (I think the court said that)
But wipe, does corporations who are people also get to spend more on their free speech than the human people?
But wipe, does political PAC’s, that are corporations, and are people also, not required to pay a gross income tax on their receipts just like their human counter parts?
You’re right, that’s how the law stands right now, they’re perfectly free to do that.
I think the law should be changed, and hope to see it changed in my lifetime, and a lot of people agree with me.
THAT’S NOT THE POINT, COOK.
The point is, my interests are not the same as the insurance companies’ interests, in fact they’re practically the opposite – and a lot of people agree with me there too.
SO, I AM JUST LETTING OJ READERS KNOW WHICH CANDIDATE IS BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY INSURANCE COMPANIES, AND WHICH ONE IS NOT.
Can you grasp that, Cook? Do you have any problems with me doing that?
By the way, what did you mean by “but wipe?” Was that an auto-correct malfunction? Do you want me to fix it?
Oh — I just thought he was being vulgar with “but wipe.” Don’t change that autocorrect, cook! It’s going to lead to something really funny some day!
I do play with words.
Vern I get what you mean, I just restated it in my own way.
Daily is in the race for the retirement benefits, if he is elected, he will retired from the county and start adding more credits in his CAPERs account for another retirement pay check.
All legal because the government people voted these benefits into law. (for themselves)
cook, I’ll be calling you in the morning – do you have a copy of that flyer that Tom sent to Republicans claiming that Joe dropped out? I need a copy of it that I can post …
Vern, I looked over the mailer that I have not yet tossed and none of Daliy’s mention the Republican.
Maybe in the first ones, but I don’t have those any more.
If I do get one with that statement, I will scan it and send you a PDF.
The number I had for you doesn’t work any more – anyway I’m getting a copy from Joe himself in a few hours. Thanks for looking! And shoot me your new number some time.
I got that mailer in my box today, addressed to rep’s and NPP’s. a couple others and a oven mit.
Total: 673,407 sent (5-17)
Total: 43,772 returned (5-17)
Total voters 1,609,046
673,407 / 1,609,046 = 41 percent