The California Clean Money Campaign is inviting OC residents to attend a rally on this Saturday, March 23, from 12 p.m.-2 p.m. to kick off the local legislative campaign in support of SB 52, the “California DISCLOSE Act.” The rally will be held at the Delhi Community Center, 505 East Central Ave, Santa Ana CA 92707.
Speakers will include:
- Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva
- Costa Mesa Councilember Sandy Genis
- Community College Trustee Jose Solorio
- Trent Lange, President of the California Clean Money Campaign
- Local activist leaders
Master of Ceremonies: Dr. Jose Moreno, President of Los Amigos and Anaheim City School District Board Member.
It may not bring complete transparency to political ads — but even translucency is a step forward!
The California Clean Money Campaign explains SB 52 as follows:
The California DISCLOSE Act, will change the Big Money game and fight back against unlimited hidden spending on campaigns by letting voters know who REALLY is paying for political ads – on the ads themselves.
Trent Lange, President of the California Clean Money Campaign, the sponsor of SB 52, will describe how the California DISCLOSE Act works, outline the statewide campaign to pass the bill, and answer all of your questions.
We will end with an organizing session for the local grassroots coalition. Learn what you can do to join the movement!
Refreshments will be served.
Please forward this message and invite anyone you know who is sick of the outrageous amounts of anonymous spending in politics and might be interested in helping bring about Fair Elections. Let’s stop Big Money from secretly stealing California elections!
Trent Lange offers a special message to encourage people to come:
I hope you can make it to this Saturday’s big Orange County campaign kickoff for SB 52, theCalifornia DISCLOSE Act, in Santa Ana from 12-2pm. Over 35 organizations have co-sponsored the kickoff! They all support the CA DISCLOSE Act as a key way to fight back against the unlimited hidden special interest spending unleashed by Citizens United.It should be a great event, with leading supporters like Assembly Member Sharon Quirk-Silva, former Assembly Member Jose Solorio, and Costa Mesa City Councilmember Sandy Genis, joining me and local activists to speak and with Dr. Jose Moreno, President of Los Amigos as the emcee.So please join us if you can — it would be great to see you there! More details and registration below.
– Trent
P.S. We also have a Facebook event for the kickoff. Please visit it and and then click “Invite Friends”to invite your Facebook friends: http://www.facebook.com/events/118018375053575/
—
Trent Lange
President, California Clean Money Campaign
Sponsor:
California Clean Money Campaign
* Americans Organized for Change
* California LULAC
* Concerned Citizens of Laguna Woods Village
* DFA-OC
* Democratic Club of Central OC
* Democratic Club of West OC
* Democratic Party of Orange County
* Democrats of Greater Irvine
* Democrats of North OC
* Laguna Woods Democratic Club
* Los Amigos of OC
* LULAC Santa Ana Council
* Maplight.org
* Military Families Speak Out
* MoveOn – Irvine & South OC Council
* MoveOn – North OC Council
* Newport Beach Women’s Democratic Club
* OC LULAC
* OC Peace Coalition
* OC Veterans for Peace
* Organizing for a Better America
* Progressives United
* Progressive Christians Uniting of OC
* Progressive Democrats of America – OC
* Reclaim Democracy – OC
* Social Action Committee of Unitarian Universalist Church in Fullerton
* Social Justice Committee Unitarian Universalist Church in Anaheim
* South Orange County Democratic Club
* Women For: OC.
* 72nd Assembly District Alliance
* 99Rise-OC
The California Clean Money Campaign is a non-partisan, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose vision is to achieve an open and accountable government that is responsive to the needs of all Californians by building statewide support for full disclosure and public funding of election campaigns. All our support comes from individuals and non-profit foundations, with no funding from corporations or unions.
and people in hell want ice cubes …..
One no-substance reply…
I had a great laugh. the dirty money kings talking about cleaning in all up.
Two no-substance replies …
Those go along with this no substance event.
That makes no sense, skally. Are you outsourcing your commenting to Eastern Europe or something?
If we really want the influence of money out of politics, contributions should be given to candidates or initiatives bases upon the merits and without expectation of anything in return…since that is the goal (or at least should be a goal), then contributions should be made to a blind escrow for the benefit of the candidate/initiative and they would not know who to say “thank you” to with head nod and a wink. The money would still be available to help the candidate/initiative but they would not know who they “owe” for the favor. Since of course, the contributor would want the influence of money out of politics too, they would keep their mouth closed as to who contributed what.
Would be great if it was mandated, but likely would be shot down by the courts…however, there likely is nothing keeping candidates/initiatives from running in that manner and for contributors to utilize it…since we want to lessen the influence of money.
Three … oh, man, you ruined our streak!
I’ve heard about the “blind trust” idea, but I don’t recall the critique. It seems like it would work only if contributors were willing to lie about having given, stealing the actual donors’ thunder. (Finally, a solution that plays to political strengths — lying!) But I suspect that it would just lead to more IEs. Tom Daly, for example, didn’t raise much in the primary, but he knew who to thank.
The donor would not have to lie, they just would not step up and say that they gave. Over time, the candidates would not know who to thank especially since my gut tells me that the amount of money given would diminish as the returned favors diminished. That in my opinion would be the major critique…but wait, the candidate would not know that I, and not someone else who just talks but does not give, gave them the money to get elected!
BTW, took me a minute on the streak…sorry about that.
Well, Boutwell… this might make sense for supporting a candidate, but we’re talking about Something Completely Different here….
1. Voters NEED TO KNOW WHO is supporting an initiative; i.e. whom it’s expected to benefit;
2. Voters need to know who is making the claims on the advertisement, in order to determine how much credibility they want to give it;
2. and perhaps most to the point; many people and groups who would have gladly secretly funded a lying campaign will be reluctant to put their name to it publicly, hence we might save ourselves all the grief of a lying campaign to begin with.
Bigger secrecy sure ain’t the answer to any of that.
You are 100% correct Vern…my suggestion of blind escrow should only apply to candidates and not initiatives. I am not sure why I included initiatives in my post to begin with as I totally agree with transparency at the initiative level.
At the initiative level it is good to know where the funding is coming from. At the candidate level, IMO, it creates a conflict for the candidate to know where their money came from.
Let’s get back to the bill, SB52. The essence is that the identity of the three major original funders for each political ad, regardless of money laundering, would be required to be clearly accessible to the VOTERS. Failure to do so would be a felony. Other state disclosure bills have some good points, but SB 52 is the one that would make the major donors clear to the voters.
David, could you explain what “the three major original funders” means? If Koch Industries gives money to a newly created and blandly named PAC without the express instructions that it go towards funding a given ad, are they (rather than the PAC considered one of the “original funders”)? What if there’s an implicit understanding that it would or might go to the ad? What if they give to PAC A and PAC B and PAC C that give to PAC D and PAC E that give to PAC F that funds the ad — do all the PACs have to get together and calculate who gave the most money? I’ve never been quite clear on this.
When I saw the title (and I’ve been planning to go to this a long time) I was gonna say, come on, nonpartisan? I mean, this SHOULD be nonpartisan, but all the politicians supporting this are Democrats. Then I saw that Sandy Genis is gonna be there – okay, that’s one Republican. And it’s emceed by the fierce independent Dr. Moreno, so okay.
But really, why do not MORE, a lot more Republican politicians support this? Having become acquainted with Tom Tait, Shawn Nelson, Todd Spitzer, and other prominent local Republicans, it’s hard to imagine they would be against letting the public know who paid for a political advertisement.
I’ve heard an official Republican argument against, something like “If activists on the other side know who’s paying for an ad, it could be dangerous! They could get boycotted! Or WORSE!!!” Jesus, what crap. Does anybody really believe that? But that IS the official Republican Party argument against openness, because 1) that’s the best they can come up with, and 2) the Republican Party, MORE than the other Party, is funded by interests who don’t want openness.
(and they got smartass cynical voters like junior and cook.)
I challenge more Republicans – Tait, Nelson, Spitzer, and more of y’all – to join us – if not Saturday then soon. I KNOW you people are not against openness and honesty. But I also know there are only so many Republican holy cows you can tip over in one year before pissing off all your comrades and getting excommunicated, so … we’ll be waiting.
Not are only Sandy Genis and Dr. Moreno non-Democrats, but the sponsoring organization is expressly non-partisan.
I know individual Republicans who favor this, but they’re afraid of consequences from their party hierarchy. I hope that they’ll suck it up and do what’s right.
“.. the sponsoring organization is expressly non-partisan.”
That’s real funny Diamond! Have you looked at their boards of directors and advisers? Along with the list you have here – it is a list of progessive liberal dems.
MoveOn? … give me a break! … non-partisan my a$$!!
A cogent point, skally! Now, where did I get that crazy idea? Oh, look at the bottom!
That specific others support one’s cause does not de-legitimize that cause. Did you also hold it against the Beatles that Charles Manson was a fan? (Honestly, if the answer is “yes,” please just don’t tell me.)
If Republican organizations weren’t asked to endorse, then I agree that that was a problem and I hope that it will be remedied. If they were asked and didn’t join — then I think that that is their problem and I hope that it will be remedied.
Greg – I agree with your comparison of MoveOn to Charles Manson. They both probably have bodies laying around that we haven’t discovered yet.
Actually, Charlie was quite the Beach Boys fan – hung out with Dennis.
Well, at least you treat the Manson murders with appropriate gravity — by your standards.
If you want to discuss how analogies work and what they do and don’t signify, we can set up a tutoring session.
BTW – I’ve been to the Barker Ranch – creepy place. It has since burned to the ground.
The best way to stop the money flow into politics (dirty money, all donations) is to tax the crap out of it.
Look at how the economic engine of California has been stopped in its tracks, it has been tax to an almost stand still.
And it would be easy, just add a few lines at the end of the campaign forms where the total receipts is shown.
Divide the total by 2.
Enclose a check in the amount shown.
No — public financing with matching funds for IEs is the best way, which is why the conservatives on the Supreme Court reached out in a gigantic spasm of judicial activism and whacked it.
You mean corporatists.
Yeah, that’s what I said — conservatives.
Why should the “Public” be forced to underwrite private corporations?
The political parties are private corporations.
And unlike other private corporations that pay tax on their political donations and specifically non-deductible expenses, the political party corporations are classified as non-profit and pay no taxes.
They’re not. They’d be underwriting individual candidates.
What Greg Said. Bitches!
a couple of years ago when the county was trying to update TINCUP, the supervisors created this huge committee with everybody from shirley grindle and mario manario to john lewis and phil greer on it to try and reach a consensus on updating the rules. ms. grindle and mr manario kept pushing for stricter and stricter rules regarding campaign fund raising. and, finally, the response from either lewis or greer was something to the effect that the more rules people create, the more money other people are going to pay the likes of lewis and greer to get around those rules. the last time i looked, lewis and greer are pretty busy and living quite well
That’s a cogent point — and a good argument for public financing rather than regulating donations.
but you still have the free speech issue and money (and lewis and greer) will always find a way to have their voices heard
Lobbying is BRIBERY plain and simple. There’s no such thing as clean money in politics, regardless of party when the will of a few is imposed on the populace through government force. Government is too big and that’s the problem.
lobbying is access, and if you want access you have to pay. you pay the door guy to get into the club to hear the band, you pay the parking guy to keep your car up front, you pay the scalper to get those center court seats to the finals, you pay the lobbyist to see the legislator
You sound like a Union thug.
My understanding, beyond that, is that willie absolutely rocks his pair of silk coveralls.
So if you Bribe a politician with lobbyist money, it’s okay because you’re Democrat, but when Wall St execs do it, they’re ruining America.
You are both wrong. None of you have the right to manipulate Government to impose your agenda on people. And last time I checked, your party is the MINORITY in Orange County. Go to Detroit where you’re welcomed.
What the hell are you babbling about? I didn’t say it’s OK for anyone, Democrat or Republican, to bribe a politician. Lobbyist donations aren’t legally considered bribes, though — for either party. And right now people do have the right to do it. As I’ve said, I prefer publicly funded elections to take away the need for politicians to fund-raise.
There is no majority party in Orange County, just a plurality — and not as much of one as used to be. I’ll go to Detroit (and visit my old friends in Ann Arbor) if you’ll buy me a ticket. I’d like to take my wife and kids, too, if that’s part of the deal.
“I’ll go if you buy me a ticket…” Spoken like a true Socialist. (Just joking Greg)
Slavery was perfectly legal, beating a woman was once legal, trading Indian scalps was legal; being legal doesn’t make it right. I remember you crowing back at Occupy how Wall St has our government bought out through lobbying, yet you advocate it yourself. It tells me you weren’t there for the cause, you were just mad you couldn’t outbid them.
Let’s focus on the words “yet you advocate it yourself.” Where in the above do I do so? I can’t even figure out what you think you’re talking about.
no tony, not a union thug, just a realist
and greg, thank you
Lobbying ensures Democracy for only those who can afford it. That’s the problem I have with Government statists.
I support the full disclosure campaign, but I am not really for public financing of campaigns. However Id support lower filing fees to run for office. Lower it to 1/2 of 1% of the salary of the said office.