It’s a question I keep not getting an answer to, try as I may. I mean, the Republicans I know here in the OC, my Republican friends on this blog and on some City Councils, they’re ALL ABOUT transparency. So how come you guys keep getting represented in Sacramento by asshats like Bob Huff, Mimi Walters and Mark Wyland, who, AS A BIG DUMB BLOCK, stand squarely in the way of it?
Okay, here’s what happened. On Monday, St Patrick’s Day, Lou Correa nearly passed a crucial amendment, SB 27,* that will clear the way for his fine transparency bill, the DISCLOSE Act, which we’ve written about here before. He was proud of the “bipartisan support” he got in the Assembly (three Republican assemblymen doing the right thing.) But now that Democrats have lost two crooked Senators (ok our bad) and no longer have the 2/3 necessary to pass a bill like this one (because any bill amending California’s “Political Reform Act” requires 2/3) the 14 Senate Reeps have swung their mighty dicks to stop the worthy bill in its tracks. But why?
For a while, the standard Republican argument against reforms like the DISCLOSE Act had been that openness and transparency “scares” “legitimate” players in the political process from participating. Perhaps it’s progress that Republicans have stopped using THAT lame-ass, embarrassing line. How legitimate and innocent and sympathetic is a wealthy donor who insists on either remaining in the shadows or else ditching politics?
NOW the Republicans’ story is that this bill IS a really good idea, except just not SO SOON! It would take effect at the beginning of July, and they say that doesn’t give these deep-pocketed mystery donors ENOUGH TIME to get used to the new rules. “Pshaw!” spits Lou at that BS, and I stand foursquare behind him spitting, “Pshaw!” I’m reminded of Anaheim kleptos who sang the praise of district elections, just as long as they could be studied for several years and then not happen for a few years after that. Republicans sound like they’re wanting JUST ONE LAST GRAND ELECTION with big, mysterious, dark money donors. Just ONE LAST ONE, for old time’s sake!?
OUR problems here in the OC are Huff, Walters and Wyland. Huff, the Senate Minority leader who sends out the marching orders, simply Abstained from the vote (which in this case has exactly the same effect as voting no.) His (in)actions can no doubt be ascribed to a combination of his usual Rectal Valium and the leadership of an Obstructionist Caucus. Mimi was one of the ONLY FOUR with the stones to actually vote NO on your right to know, but I’ve been stonewalled in my attempts to get a reason from her people, as they probably consider this blog to be the very Cat’s Paw of Satan.
Senator Mark Wyland, on the other hand, likes this blog, and his spokesman tried to put the best face on his boss’ recalcitrance. “Mark actually was out of town during that vote, but if he’d been in Sacramento, he probably would have voted no.”
“Really, why?”
“He wants the amendment.”
“What amendment?”
“The Republicans think this is a good bill, but that it shouldn’t take effect until January of next year, NOT this July.”
“Oh. AFTER the 2014 election.”
“Right. It’s just not fair to donors who have already started giving to this year’s campaigns, or started planning on it, it’s not fair to change the rules in the middle of the election season.”
“Well… but they have to have known this bill has been coming down the pike for months. Years maybe. Plus, it doesn’t apply to donations before July 1 when it takes effect.”
“Yeah, well… that’s how the law works.”
[Pause on Vern’s end.] “Do you know how this sounds? Like all you Republicans, including Mark, want there to be one more season of huge, anonymous, untrackable donations. And also, we’re supposed to feel sorry for these people who insist on influencing things from the shadows, we’re supposed to feel sorry for them that we’re making them follow new rules.”
Wyland’s guy didn’t sound real comfortable or convinced with the line he had to spin. I signed off with, “Well, let Mark know I disagree and I hope he changes his mind.”
SB 27 is only one vote short in the Senate – it only needs one Republican Senator to change his or her mind. And Lou has until the end of the legislative season, in August, to make it happen, and not revert to square one – he hasn’t decided what to do yet. Mark Wyland is leaving politics, driven out of the BOE race by Diane Harkey’s nastiness and superior funding, exactly like John Moorlach was driven out of politics by Mimi Walters’ nastiness and superior funding. He says he wants to devote his time and energy instead to an education foundation he started a few years ago. It seems like maybe he doesn’t need to worry too much about whatever horrible punishments the Republican Party visits upon its members who don’t toe the line.
I see two possibilities for SB 27 and the DISCLOSE Act this year: One Republican Senator with a conscience – possibly Mark Wyland – could join the rest of the senate and the vast majority of public opinion and give us a more transparent 2014 election – one not marred by the undisclosed donations laundered through “elaborate networks of nonprofits” by secretive out-of-state groups which marred the 2012 cycle. This could be the parting gift of a guy like, for example, Mark Wyland, as he exited the dirty world of politics.
OR if the spring and summer drag on with no Republican doing the right thing, Correa might as well bite the bullet and accept that Republican amendment; then at least we’ll have cleaner elections starting in 2016, without having to start from scratch all over. But then a 2014 cycle marred by dark secretive money would be the final gift of … MARK WYLAND as he left politics. And it would be a gift ONLY appreciated by the sort of interests who like or need to hide their identity. People he shouldn’t really need as he moves on into his educational work.
It seems the ball is in Senator Wyland’s court.
Senator Mark Wyland
(949) 489-9838
(916) 651-4038
Oh, right. That question I kept asking before: Why do Republicans hate transparency? We still haven’t really got around to answering it. I know, I phrase it provocatively, in the tradition of “Why do you hate America / puppies / baby seals etc.” But why is it REALLY that bills like the DISCLOSE Act tend to be opposed nearly unanimously by Republicans and backed nearly unanimously by Democrats?
I can’t see another reason than the following, although I’m all ears: The interests Republicans represent (in Sacramento and Washington at least) are ones that require secrecy because they are RIGHTLY REVILED BY THE PUBLIC: your big energy billionaires, your polluters, your alcohol and tobacco, your insurance and bankers. What am I missing?
Call Mark.
*
*NOTE: The first version of this story mistakenly conflated two bills – The DISCLOSE Act which is SB 52; and SB 27 which is an amendment to the Political Reform Act of 1974, necessary to make the DISCLOSE Act possible. SB 27 is the one that Senate Republicans defeated on Monday, and the one we need to ask Mark, Bob and Mimi to vote yes on. And of course we need BOTH 27 and 52.
implement this bill when Obama implements all of aca. both before the election would be great
I’m sure that was supposed to be snarky, but it didn’t come across sensibly. Again after coffee?
has to do with political games. over your head?
Yes, over my head, brother. keep the faith!
Why do Republicans hate transparency?
I think you meant repuglicans. And yes, they do. It’s part of the ubergrift. I also believe there are a good many Democrats who do, too.
I’d like to think all that, that there are good Republicans and bad Democrats, because that’s what I see in my own county.
Yet somehow, Democrats in Sacramento are unanimous on bills like the Disclose Act, and Republicans there are NEARLY unanimous against it. Do you see an explanation for that, regarding this particular bill? Is there something in it that sneakily favors Democrats? i don’t think so. And are ALL Sacramento Republicans “RePUGlicans?”
And are ALL Sacramento Republicans “RePUGlicans?”
Most likely.
Interesting take on disclosure. There was a bill to make local governments transparent and the democrats controled the state legislature.
This is what the democrats this of transparency and open disclosure.
* SB 501 (Correa) requires local officials and executive staff to file annual compensation disclosure forms. Status: Died on the Senate Floor; Unfinished Business.
Good memory. Looks like that was 2009-10. It was about disclosure of local government employee COMPENSATION. It looks like it started with bipartisan support – Lou and the great Hector De La Torre. I don’t think it needed 2/3 like this one does, and it did die in the Senate, can’t tell why. It passed the assembly unanimously. But maybe it WAS Senate Dems who didn’t want the public to know government employee compensation. Tsk, Tsk… Don’t know enough to confirm or deny it though…
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/sen/sb_0501-0550/sb_501_bill_20100813_amended_asm_v96.pdf
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml
If you were Donald Bren, Tony Mosio, Joan Irvine Smith, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, T. Boone Pickens, Donald Trump or the Koch Bros. would you really want people to know you supported anyone running for office in Florida or Orange County, California? You might even be willing pay folks already in office – NOT TO VOTE FOR THAT!
“Transparency” – Is that when you want to be a parent……but right now you are only
practicing….how to do it?
Um … yeah … so…
Still love Mimi? Still think she’s just the cutest cat’s pajamas?
Vern, it terrifies me how often I agree with you. lol
Please remind me who you are, Mr. Reeve, so I can relish the apparent irony?
There’s a movement among the “political outsiders” (some of whom do have insider positions, but rarely control) in Orange County. How much we agree terrifies a lot of us, but we’ll have to get used to it.
*Remember Chairman Vern….the bar for most electeds is very low. They have to be nice…… They have to be mostly intelligent……They have to answer you and look in your eye when they do that…..and they have to answer your e-mails. Whomever they get their cash from doesn’t matter so much. You would love it, if they all got $10 donations from little old ladies without grandkids. You might even love it, if when you called their office staff members would say: “So nice to hear from you Ron & Anna…what’s on your mind today?” It would be lovely if they would all have Grass Roots Open Forum Meetings where anyone might ask a legit question….if they had bounced it off a staffer first. But then this would be “patriotic heaven” and only those that have passed on to the great divide ever even contemplated these things.
Well, many of us here have a higher bar, and you might think of setting yours higher as well. You get what you deserve!
W?T?F?
*Where’s The Fat? It is all around you dude!
I certainly want to know who Tony Mosio, Bill Gates, et al are controlling umm influencing in S OC.
There you go, Derek! Me too. Them, the Koch Brothers, and any other busybodies who don’t want us to know what they’re doing in California.
*Dear Deriek………look in your wallet…..OK, now look in their wallets. See any difference? Look in your checkbook…..OK, now look in their checkbooks and see how much they have given to various committees, candidates, electeds and other 501-C3’s and C4’s!
Do you two have to constantly be saying nothing, while pretending that you’re saying something? We KNOW they’re richer and more powerful than us. That’s why we want to know exactly how and where they’re spending their money to affect our politics and our lives!
Duh……..
*Then why does your surrogate Derek ask such dumb questions Chairman Vern? Who cares what “they think”? Maybe Derek is speaking from his note in a bottle that the Captain of Flight MH370 dropped off in the Indian Ocean on his way to Pakistan. Sorry, but is just about that bad.
OK, I retreat in awe with the usual question mark hovering above my head.
It’s the dark money from out of State – Koch Brothers, etc. – that backs local candidates and finances state-wide initiatives that interests me the most. Lots of sinister stuff going on. The public should have the right to know who is financing these people and issues on the ballot, but we do not.
Wealthy special interests, be they corporations or individuals seem to see the voting public as sheep that can be fooled into supporting most anything, and unfortunately sometimes it is true.
Support or oppose. They’ve managed to make the sheeple believe that simple things like labeling our food and campaign finance disclosure will somehow cost consumers and taxpayers extra money, and the credulous sheeple bleat “screw that!”
Which is why we end up needing our squirrely legislature to pass even simple reforms like the one we’re discussing.
I have just read the Sunday AM column by Joel Kotkin in the Register Opinion section, titled “”Too Much Pull” in which he describes the growinig power and influence in politics by the wealthy. He states this is occurring in both parties. I especially liked this quote which he attributed to former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis – “We can have a democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.” This in relation to Kotkin’s Oligarchy theme today. Food for thought in view of what seems to be going on.
Sounds a bit like Anaheim, doesn’t it?
Over But Not Out is one of our many readers who’s sick of hearing about Anaheim all the time. :-/
And yet Anaheim is the grift that keeps giving.
…I wanna get-a lost in your rock and roll and grift away…
Oh, gimme the Beach Boys and freeze my soul*
*(just kidding)
Vern,
I respect other readers’interests/concerns. Many times the relevance of issues is not determined by our tastes, but by the events of our surroundings. Anaheim as the largest OC city, and the 10th largest in the State, is a source of many issues that transcends the city. It is a now a case study of crony capitalism, and as long as its negative impact is not resolved, the issues will be reflected in the public conversation.
Biggest ole turd in the county! Let’s stir it
Every day