State Legislative Update

Technically, the session is over in Sacramento, but of course, with no budget, the work will go on. More on that in a moment, but let's take a look at the bills that have passed thus far.

Hundreds of bills passed through their respective houses and made their way to the Governor's desk. Among those passing:

• AB 1945, which cracks down on insurance company rescission policies
• SB 1301, the California DREAM Act, allowing children of illegal immigrants to access financial aid for college
• SB 375, a major land use bill that would improve transportation planning and reduce urban sprawl (this is a real coup)
• AB 583, the Clean Money pilot project bill that would make the 2014 Secretary of State election a Clean Money race.

Among the bills that failed:

• SB 1522, a health care reform bill which would have standardized the individual health care market and made it easier to comparison shop, as well as set a floor for basic minimum care. That those who most strongly pushed for comprehensive health reform would fail to pass this common-sense fix makes no sense to me.

• SB 110, which would have created an independent sentencing commission to review and revised sentencing guidelines and parole standards. Another failure of leadership in our prison crisis, as lawmakers refuse to loosen their grip on the rules which they've abused and led to this disaster.

As for the budget, now the legislature, out of session by constitutional mandate, must work on nothing else. Sen. Perata has called the bluff on the Republicans, asking them to formally submit their unspeakably cruel budget plan so that the whole state can see their priorities for what they are.

There was a strange colloquy near the end of yesterday’s Senate session (Republican Senator Jim Battin is pictured at right), where the Republicans were clearly caught flatfooted, flustered in their responses like school kids admonished for not doing their homework, and having a hard time coming to grips with what Perata told them. This is a reprise of what Perata did last year when Senate Republicans held the budget up and when he asked them to come up with their own proposal.

Perata: Right now, the bill that I brought up yesterday is kind of an orphan. You have your opportunity to present a bill that you outlined today in your press conference. I appreciate the fact that there is a substantial amount of work to be done on that bill. We know, because we started ours 8 months ago. So you’ve got a lot of work to do. But we’re very confident you can do it. Every day we will be here to see how we’re doing [...]

Republican Senator Jim Battin: I just want to make sure I understand what your expectations are. So what you want from our caucus is a full budget document, is that correct?

Perata: Yeah. A budget.

Battin: And every day we are preparing that, you want to meet.

Perata: Yeah. You know what I don’t’ want to do is to be caught in that position where people are getting confused whey we don’t have a budget. Now every day we meet, we can say, “you’re working on it.”

Battin: And you also want to have the trailer bills as well?

Perata: Yeah. A budget.

Battin: You would actually allow us to bring it up for a vote on the floor?

Perata: You betcha.

Battin: So my expectation is that it will fail…And then what?

Perata: Let’s not prejudge. You may come up with a piece of work that will knock our socks off. So let’s see what you will do.

It's a neat trick, and good for political purposes. I don't know how it gets us closer to a budget. Schwarzenegger still wants the sales tax hike, Yacht Party Republicans are still dead-set against it, and Democrats are trying to compromise and on the edge of cracking. But they seem to believe, this time around, that the budget can be blamed on Republicans in November and there's a benefit in campaigning on the issue (I think that's why Perata wants a real plan).

So nobody knows how this ends. And the victims are the public employees, the long-term care workers, the schools, the health clinics, the everyday Californians that did nothing wrong and don't deserve this anxiety.

The California Report

As we head into this weekend's e-board meetings for the CDP, here's a few things I've noticed around the Web-o-sphere:

• It's a few days old, but I should mention that AB583, Loni Hancock's Clean Money bill for California elections, was amended. The latest is that it will be placed on the June 2010 ballot to enact a pilot program that would provide voluntary public financing in the 2014 Secretary of State's race. The original plan was to make the 2010 Governor's race clean money, along with a selected Assembly and Senate race. While shifting this to the lower-cost Secretary of State's race increases chances of passage, it basically puts off any chance at clean money for another four years. So it's bittersweet, to me.

• This Alex Kozinski situation has gotten a lot of noise on political blogs. Kozinski, the chief judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, was presumably caught with pornographic materials he stored on a public website, and now he's offering himself up for investigation. But the truth might be more sinister. As Lawrence Lessig explains, Kozinski may have been the victim of a smear campaign by a lone nut who accessed material that was private but unsecure. Worth a read.

• At the moment there are ten initiatives which have qualified for the November ballot; the latest would float $5 billion in bonds to subsidize purchases of clean-energy vehicles and research into renewables. I'm a bit worried that such a long ballot with an what will probably be record turnout is going to bring lots and lots of low-information voters to the polls making decisions on the state's future armed with little in the way of facts. In other words, just another California election.

• On Tuesday, all couples in the state will be permitted to marry regardless of gender. In anticipation, the New York Times ran an interesting article about marriage and gender relationships. Very interesting stuff.

• Fabian Nuñez endorsed Kevin Johnson in his runoff race for Sacramento Mayor. That race will happen in November. No word on Johnson's position on the allegations that refs gave the 2002 Western Conference Finals to the Lakers over the Kings, which may be a salient issue in Sac-town.

The Money Goes In, The Favors Go Out

This article by Frank Russo got me pretty depressed about the state of California politics.

There’s something amiss in the state of Sacramento—and it has something to do with the state’s banking and lending institutions and the stacking of committees that deal with them with legislators that are either weak kneed or just a bit overfriendly with the industry that they should be protecting us from.

What else is new?

Well, this afternoon, the Senate Committee on Banking, Finance, and Insurance, Chaired by Senator Michael Machado of Stockton, will be hearing two bills that have been gutted down behind a closed door process such that today’s public proceedings on them may amount to little more than a sham [...]

It’s difficult enough to get bills passed through the Assembly Banking Committee and the Assembly floor when going up against the behemoth banking industry which has a lot of spare change to throw around in legislative races and many high paid lobbyists scurrying about the Capitol.

It looks like AB 69 by Assemblymember Ted Lieu, originally a great bill, has been amended since it left the Assembly—and before today’s hearing—such that the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization dedicated to protecting homeownership and family wealth by working to eliminate abusive financial practices, initially listed in support, has withdrawn that position.

Read the whole thing. The bottom line is that in this recent primary election special interest groups spent nearly $10 million, and a good bulk of them were business interests who are now playing inside Democratic primaries in traditionally liberal areas to sell low-information voters a bill of goods. This doesn't always work, but it works just enough to frustrate progress in Sacramento.

Lesson 3: The business lobby can influence Democratic politics, even in a largely minority district.

Former Assemblyman Rod Wright, a moderate, defeated liberal Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally -- reversing the pattern of leftist victories -- in a South Los Angeles Senate district after business donors invested roughly $1 million in Wright's campaign.

"Business has tended to stay out of black politics," says Sragow, who advises the business lobby. "But some black politicians ask, 'Why? We're always out looking for economic development in our districts.'

"The business community has decided it can't get a Republican Legislature, so it will play in districts where there's a Democratic candidate it can work with."

A major Democratic strategist has all but said that Don Perata shepherded along the candidacy of Rod Wright, and actually put it in terms that come very close to illegal coordination (note "a flurry of record spending by closely-aligned IE groups focusing all of their attention and ammo in one, concerted direction.")

This is the game. IE's are increasingly the only way to reach the electorate, as the low-dollar revolution has pretty much not reached the Golden State. So the Chamber of Commerce and industry groups fill the pockets of the politicians who, once elected, feel obligated to repay them. The US Constitution allows the right for anyone to petition their government for redress of grievances; outlawing lobbyists or the ability of merchants to consult their politicians is not tenable. What is tenable is to either create a parallel public financing system by employing the residents of the state to pay attention to local politics enough to fund progressive-minded candidates, or to bring clean money to California, where it's arguably needed more than anywhere else, and end the pernicious influence of special interests in state elections. Otherwise, you get a steady parade of mortgage relief bills that offer no relief.

State Legislature Attempts to Eliminate All Local Campaign Funding Limits

Even though Loni Hancock's Clean Money bill, allowing for a pilot program to attempt public financing for state elections, was turned into a two-year bill, meaning it won't be eligible for passage until 2008, I was under the impression that campaign finance reform was making some progress in the state legislature. And while this shocker legislation is more about the state exerting control on local municipalities more than anything else, it certainly puts a damper on public financing efforts, as it would virtually eliminate any local limits on contributions.

Legislation that opponents said would eviscerate local governments' ability to limit the size of campaign contributions was approved Tuesday by a state Senate committee.

The bill, backed by a powerful coalition that includes the Democratic and Republican parties, labor unions and the National Rifle Association, cleared the Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee on a 3-0 vote.

Special interests and the state parties want to dictate what they can spend on campaigns at the local level, and they want to disallow any reasonable attempts by the local governments to limit their influence. This is really a blow against federalism in the context of the state vs. the local governments, and I find it distasteful. If Santa Monica wants to experiment with Clean Money, or limit campaign contributions, why should the state disallow it? Assemblyman Martin Garrick, the Republican sponsor of the legislation, is using truly devious logic to push this forward:

Garrick said the measure was merely an attempt to clarify current law and avoid a "patchwork of laws" preventing political parties and other statewide organizations from communicating with their members about which candidates the groups support and oppose.

"What I am assuring is that members of a membership organization like the California Teachers Association or the League of Conservation Voters can afford to freely communicate . . . with their members," he said.

But Ned Wigglesworth, a lobbyist for California Common Cause, said the bill would open up an "enormous loophole" by preventing cities and counties from capping campaign donations that are arranged by candidates and used to pay for mailers sent by political parties to their members.

"It's about local control over local elections," he said. "Without such safeguards, local contribution limits would be rendered worthless."

This would be devastating. It may even allow organizations to avoid reporting requirements. What the hell are we doing here?

Ron Calderon, Mod Squad member in good standing, chaired the committee that passed the bill. Your state senator ought to hear from you on this one. It would be a major step backward in the goal to remove the influence of big money in state politics.

Clean Money Bill Passes, Interesting Debate on Health Care

It's impossible to keep up with all the bills passing in the California Legislature, but there is the good news that the Clean Money pilot program, which would make 3 races in 2010 (1 Assembly race, 1 Senate race, and the Governor) publicly financed, got through the Assembly by a 45-34 vote. It would be amazing to see a true public financing system coming to California. The legislature is doing a pretty good job of getting progressive ideas through their respective chambers. Whether they'll be signed into law is another matter.

And here's some more about the passage of SB 840, the single-payer universal health care bill, in the California State Senate.

This section is telling, and an object lesson on how to deal with Republicans who will lie and lie about health care in this country. It's important for every Democrat who wants to talk about health care to read this.

In the staid Senate, there was little debate on the measure. Being its fifth time around the block, Capitol watchers expect nothing other than a party-line (or near party-line) vote on the measure.

However, Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley, did take the opportunity to attack the nationalized health care systems of other countries.

“There’s no question that we have problems with the high cost of health care, but to say we have the lowest standard of health care, or that we’re at the bottom of industrialized nations is not a true statement,’’ Aanestad said.

Contrary to what Aanestad said, though, the U.S. spends more on health care, but gets less, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The latest numbers show that the U.S. spends $7,800 per capita on health care, nearly twice as much as Canada’s $4,050; the UK spends $3,250. Meanwhile, the US ranks 21st in life expectancy (Canada ranks 7th and the UK ranks 18th), and 23rd in infant mortality behind Canada and the UK .

Aanestad went on to say that the “the only universal health care ... (seen) in the US is the outmoded and substandard Veterans Administration Health Care system. Do you really want your American health care to end up in the Veterans’ Administration model?”

Lastly, Aanestad proclaimed that “if I needed bypass surgery, I could not get it (in Canada) because I’m over 60 years old and I would be put on a waiting list because I’m too old to qualify for bypass surgery.’’ On the other hand, in the U.S. “If I needed bypass surgery, I’d have it tonight,’’ he said.

Sen. Kuehl contradicted this statement.

“This notion that waiting lists exists somewhere else, but not in America ? Maybe for the privileged few of us who can get right in. But there are a lot of people in my district – the richest district in the state and the one with probably the highest number of people insured – who are still on waiting lists, whether with Kaiser, or with Blue Cross,’’ said Kuehl, who represents Santa Monica.

“You can’t just run right in and get your bypass surgery,’’ Kuehl said.

Please read and absorb that. The Republicans are going to lie about health care. Everyone in this country knows the health care system. It's easier to lie about something more abstract like Iraq than health care, when everyone knows the deal. This, of course, is why they always shift the debate to health care in Europe. Democrats, all you have to do is SPEAK THE TRUTH. The people are with you.

Sacramento For Sale

This is deadline week in the California State Assembly. Hundreds of bills will be voted upon so that they can be moved on to the Senate. Obviously, major special interests want to have something to say about which bills pass and which leave. The best way for them to impact that is through campaign contributions. And this year, they've got a new campaign to which to contribute.

The law bars them from donating more than $7,200 directly to Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles). But nothing has prevented teachers, doctors, gambling enterprises, insurers and others from giving much, much more to a cause close to Nuñez's heart.

Those interest groups wrote checks for as much as $250,000 to help bankroll a ballot measure that would tweak California's term limits to give Nuñez another six years in the Legislature. Seventeen unions, corporations, utilities and professional associations have donated a combined $1.68 million for a signature-gathering effort to put the measure before voters next February.

The contributions, all made within the last two months, come as lawmakers led by Nuñez are deciding on hundreds of bills of concern to the donors. The groups had already spent a combined $3.5 million in the first three months of this year trying to influence the Legislature, governor's office and state agencies, state records show.

This is not a problem in and of itself, unless the bills that come out of the Assembly match up favorably with the campaign contributors. We'll be watching. But the appearance is certainly not pristine.

Jay Stewart, executive director of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Better Government Assn. in Chicago, said he doubted that union members and corporate shareholders were clamoring for a term-limits overhaul. But the large donations are certain to be noticed by Nuñez, he said.

"Common sense tells you that if you support an issue near and dear to any legislator … to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, you're probably going to get your phone call returned," Stewart said.

There's a list of donors here. A lot of them are trade unions. We've always known that special interest dollars on all sides corrode the trust that people have in their government. The best way we can change this is to lobby on behalf of AB 583, the pilot program for public financing of elections which will be voted on tomorrow. However, this won't impact special interests giving to initiative committees that, in this case, extend the term of service for legislators. So initiative reform is something that we need as well.

A Chance for Clean Money In California

This is an enormous development. Today was the day that all of the bills in the California Assembly that involve funding get whittled down from the Appropriations Committee's "suspense file." Those that pass move on to a full vote on the floor. The extremely important Clean Money bill, AB 583 pushed by Asm. Loni Hancock, passed that process in an amended form. I really like what they've set up here as a pilot project. They would pick three races to run as publicly financed elections in 2010; one Assembly seat, one Senate seat, and the Governor. If the bill passes both State Houses, it would go on the ballot in June 2008 to be approved by voters (this will be a low-turnout election, which actually may be a good thing, considering how Clean Money was slapped down in 2006). The Governor would need to sign the bill to get it on the ballot.

The funding mechanism for this bill is similar to the public financing measures in Arizona and Maine, which improves upon what was on the 2006 ballot. Doing this as a pilot program that can test the system and get both legislators and voters comfortable with it really improves its chances of passage as well.

But this is a beginning and not an end. This is from California Clean Money Campaign Chair Susan Lerner:

We're grateful to Speaker Nunez and Appropriations Chair Mark Leno, as well as bill author Loni Hancock, for their creativity and steadfast support for Clean Money. We've come so far, but we need the help of your blog readers in passing the amended bill through the Assembly.

Blog readers can fax their Assemblymembers by using our on-line letter-writing tool, caclean.org/letters.

If you believe that money has corroded American politics, if you would like to see a system where anyone can choose to run without having millions to self-fund, if you would like to reduce the power of corporations and lobbyists, if you would like to see government return to its ideals of being of the people, by the people, and for the people, you will click on the link and fax your letter to your Assemblyperson. We know that California is a national bellweather, so a successful clean money program here could spread nationwide. It's too important not to put everything we can into it.

CA Clean Money: Perata Endorses

This is an absolutely enormous development. Clean Money got kind of lost in the shuffle at last weekend's CDP Convention, but Loni Hancock's AB 583 has been quietly making its way through the Assembly. It cleared the Assembly Elections Committee, and yesterday there was a hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which was favorable. And now, the Senate President pro Tem has signed on to be a co-author. Considering that the CDP wouldn't take a position on Clean Money just a year ago, this is historic news. Susan Lerner writes in an email to supporters:

I want you to be among the first to hear the exciting news: California Senate President pro Tem Don Perata just became a co-author of AB 583, the Clean Money bill!

The President pro Tem joins an ever-growing list of Legislators who are co-authors of AB 583, the California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act. Clean Money supporters in Senator Perata's Oakland district and throughout California should be proud because it was your calls, letters, and petitions that convinced him to sign on as a active Clean Money supporter.

As Mark Leno said in yesterday's Appropriation Committee hearing, "AB 583 is more than just a bill, it's a movement." Two years ago it was stopped in committee. Last year it cleared the Assembly. And this year, Perata's support will go a long way to helping it pass both houses and go on to the governor. This movement understands that the ability to wage fair and clean elections is vital to sustaining our democracy. You can join the movement working to clean up our political process here.

Hey, At Least We Had a Satan-Free Convention

I know there was a lot of bad blood coming out of how the CDP Convention wrapped up, but consider this: that controversy was over how we passed one resolution on Iraq and not another. It's not like it was about something like this:

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan’s minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.

In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants “hate American people” and “are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won’t do.”

Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to “destroy Christian America” and replace it with “a godless new world order — and that is not extremism, that is fact,” Larsen said. […]

Republican officials then allowed speakers to defend and refute the resolution. One speaker, who was identified as “Joe,” said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil. Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald, said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because “they are not going to become Republicans….”

No matter what the intra-party squabbles are, let's understand that the real whackadoos are in that other party. We can resolve differences between ourselves as reasonable people. We don't think Satan is an undocumented immigrant.

Another thing to consider: one of the resolutions that the CDP passed yesterday was in support of high-speed rail, which we learned yesterday that the governor may be trying to defund and effectively stop. One of the resolutions we DIDN'T pass was in support of Clean Money, which actually is moving through the legislative process, with a hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. So resolutions pale in comparison to what's really happening in Sacramento. Just a little perspective.

What Congress Is Doing Right

Some Gallup poll numbers came out showing a plunge in approval ratings for Congress after a significant uptick. The numbers are still above what they were for the dreaded 109th Republican Congress, and other polls suggest Gallup may be an outlier. But I think that Democrats in general aren't doing enough to highlight successes. So allow me to note some.

I've been critical of the Democratic leadership for how they're handling the Iraq debate, and I think that things are moving out of conference committee entirely too slow. We have two major pieces of the first 100 hours agenda passed by both houses of Congress, and they've fallen off the radar screen for weeks. Getting those to the President's desk would do a lot to blunt criticism. Nevertheless, here are some encouraging items:

• A trio of open government bills passed by the House would compel more records to be turned over during Freedom of Information Act requests, require public acknowledgement for donors to presidential libraries, and ensure that the public can scrutinize Presidential records. They sound like inside baseball, but they're crucial for history and the public record to ensure that government secrecy goes out with the Bush Administration. All of these bills had substantial bipartisan support.

• The Accountability in Contracting Act passed the House, which would minimize no-bid contracts (and require public justification for them), eliminate "cost-plus" contracts that make it financially beneficial for contractors to waste taxpayer dollars, mandate disclosure of any cost overruns, and close the "revolving door" whereby former federal government officials become contractors seeking business from government. This should also be called "The Most Sane Legislation in the World Act." The vote was 347-73.

• Byron Dorgan is leading the charge in questioning Halliburton's move to Dubai, which appears to be an attempt to slither out of having to pay taxes after fleecing taxpayers for years.

• The House is finally giving taxpayers in Washington, DC representation, moving toward passing a bill awarding two additional seats to Congress, one to DC and another to Utah, which would get one in the next Census anyway. The Bush Administration is threatening to veto this bill because everyone knows that people who live in Washington, DC shouldn't have a say in their government (?).

• A proposed bill by California Rep. Mike Honda would amend the No Child Left Behind Act to require parental opt-ins before military recruiters take their children's personal information. Right now every school must give the personal data of all their students to the military without notifying the parents. That's wrong, and this amendment would reverse it.

• I'm most pleased to announce that Sen. Dick Durbin, as he pledged in a blogger meeting I attended last month, introduced the Fair Elections Act, which allows for public financing of Congressional elections. He even got bipartisan support, as Arlen Specter (R-PA) cosponsored.

The Fair Elections Now Act would restore public confidence in the election process by allowing qualified candidates to receive campaign funds from the Senate Fair Elections Fund instead of asking for money from private interests. In return, participating candidates would voluntarily agree to limit their campaign spending to the amount allocated to them. This voluntary alternative to traditional privately financed campaigns would free candidates from the incessant, time-consuming money chase that has tainted public perceptions of elected officials and fostered abuses that undermine our democracy. Candidates could instead devote their time and energy to talking with their constituents about the issues that are important to them.

We're never going to totally get rid of the corrosive power of money in politics. But this bill would go a long way to restoring some basic fairness and allow legislators to legislate again.

• Finally, Nancy Pelosi has promised to bring a measure requiring Congressional authorization for any attack on Iran to a vote, and I plan to hold her to it.

This is all outside of the search for justice in the US Attorney Purge scandal. But it shows that the Congress is trying to do the people's business in many respects, and they ought to be recognized for that.

SoCal Report (Silent T)

A few things in the part of the state that gets sun which caught my eye:

• Full public financing of municipal elections will be on the agenda at tonight's Santa Monica City Council Meeting. Solidly progressive City Councilman Kevin McKeown raised this issue earlier in the year and couldn't get a second, but they ran a staff report, and both Common Cause and the League of Women Voters are pushing this hard. Just like everything else, we'll need to win the Clean Money battle from the bottom up.

• This complete crackup of the Minuteman Project is so hilariously predictable that it should be a reality show. I can't wait for the twists and turns and the backstabbing. You put a bunch of power-hungry authoritarians in the same group, who knew that they'd start fighting each other for control? Fascinatin'.

• You might want to think twice before eating in LA - the biggest produce wholesaler in the city, the 7th Street Market, was cited for multiple violations, including rat infestation. Never been, not going now.

• I wish I had the time to write the badly needed very long series of articles about the proposed LNG terminal off the coast of Malibu. This would be an environmental disaster for the coastline, yet the Governor has given tacit support to BHP Billiton to build it. This blog is a great resource for this story. Look at this part:

Environmental Protection Agency political appointees used non-existent analysis and misled the public when they reversed course and rejected tough smog rules for the proposed Cabrillo Port liquefied natural gas terminal off the Malibu coast, the chairman of the House Investigations Committee said Monday.

Rep. Henry Waxman also accused top EPA officials of refusing to hand over key documents detailing the 2005 decision by a White House political appointee to overrule regional EPA officials on a key decision about whether the Cabrillo Port proposal can go forward.

The news from Washington comes as BHP Billiton and its lobbying firm have hired another two close associates of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, to press the case behind the scenes for Cabrillo Port. That facility faces key licensing decisions next month, and could be operating on Malibu’s coastal horizon in three years.

It looks like Assemblyman Lloyd Levine has withdrawn his support for the LNG Terminal, which is key.

• New op-ed columnists at the LA Times. Surprise, there are less now than there were - cost-cutting rulez! Also, somehow, Jonah Goldberg kept his slot (then again, I actually like his op-ed today), though Arianna Huffington, Adam Hochschild, Gustavo Arellano (Ask a Mexican!) and Sandra Tsing Loh come aboard as "contributing editors," which I think means they'll write op-eds but won't be paid as staff op-ed writers.

CA Clean Money Update

We all know it's going to be a long, hard slog to get a Clean Money Bill through the California Legislature along the lines of what's been implemented in Arizona, Maine and Connecticut. Heck, the CDP took a neutral position on the Clean Money initiative in 2006. And it got obliterated at the polls.

But nevertheless, things are moving forward. This week Assemblywoman Loni Hancock has re-introduced AB 583, essentially the same bill as the one which passed the Assembly last session. So far there are 4 co-sponsors. You can read all about the bill here. It's a public financing system for all statewide elections for candidates of all parties, provided they show a base of support with a set number of $5 contributions.

What I thought was interesting was this, from the CA Clean Money Campaign's email:

Also exciting is the news that State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) will be introducing a pilot project bill to set up a Clean Money system for the Insurance Commissioner.

Interesting that they would pick the Insurance Commissioner race, no? I mean, considering that the current officeholder contributed $13.5 million of his own money to win the job. A pilot program may be the way to test the system that will be needed to prove its viability.

Sen. Durbin to introduce Congressional Election public financing bill

(I'm to the left of the real-life Senator!)

This morning several of your favorite Kossacks, along with yours truly and additional bloggers, met for about an hour with Sen. Dick Durbin in Los Angeles for a wide-ranging discussion on a host of issues.

Next month, Sen. Durbin will introduce a bill calling for public financing of Congressional elections. He anounced this on the floor of the Senate in January, and the bill should be ready by March, the culmination of a years-long effort to address the problem. This is long overdue and it's something progressives should be fighting for, as it cuts to the core of all the negatives that flow from politics. And with the #2 man in the Senate pushing for it, with bipartisan co-sponsors according to him, then it's not only a fight worth fighting but one that we can achieve.

The meeting was held in a hotel restaurant in Century City, and oddly enough, the only other time I was there was to interview Peter Frampton. And it was in the same room! (no vocoder available this time out, unfortunately)

Sen. Durbin led off by discussing his Fair Elections bill (working title). Obviously, money is probably the most impossible thing to get out of politics, especially if you buy the legal argument that money equals speech. But if you can level the playing field and make it so that the impact of money is not as great, at least you give everyone a fighting chance. The way to do this, in Durbin's view, is to offer an opt-out, so that critics cannot claim that this violates the First Amendment; however, that opt-out would immediately impact the amount of money any Clean Money opponent would receive. In other words, if you're a publicly-financed candidate and your opponent opts out of the system, you immediately receive DOUBLE the money you would normally be entitled to.

(NOTE: this is not related to the Presidential public financing bill of Russ Feingold's, to which Barack Obama co-signed as a sponsor last week. This is about public financing for elections in the Senate and the House.)

There would be language regulating 527s and IEs in the bill as well, but again, no details yet. Sen. Durbin said it would be closely modeled on the Clean Money laws that govern elections in Arizona and Maine. Under those systems, a candidate who shows viability by collecting a certain number of $5 contributions then qualifies for public financing. This allows for a more diverse set of candidates and not simply ones who can self-fund; frees up those candidates to spend time with constituents instead of constantly being on the phone asking for money (which the Senator described as "all-consuming"); and gets us closer to a system where lobbying money doesn't drive the agenda in Congress.

What's interesting about this is that Sen. Durbin is fairly new to this issue. His pat line before, he said, was that "I don't want to give one cent of my tax money to fund David Duke's campaign." But he has come to understand the corrosive power of money in politics, and how the current system is irreparably broken. Campaign ads are "the biggest cash cow the TV networks have ever seen," so expect them to be the chief detractors of this bill. One positive sign is that the Senator is close to lining up union support for the measure. This is enormous. The unions actively opposed the Clean Money initiative in California, sending it cascading to defeat. Durbin was right when he noted that unions simply cannot keep up with Big Business over the long haul in terms of the money race. Indeed, it's not what they're designed to do. In 2005 unions led the fight against Gov. Schwarzenegger's Special Election in California, and emerged victorious. But it took tens of millions of dollars, forced many unions to ask for extra dues from their members, and took such an effort that there was no way they could repeat the trick for the 2006 gubernatorial election. And they didn't. And we still have a Governor Schwarzenegger. It's unsustainable to expect unions to fight our battles monetarily. We need to pull in the reins and give candidates the option of public financing.

This will not be an easy fight, but the key will come in laying the groundwork with the public. People intuitively understand the influence of money in politics. If they would just be given the facts, that we lose more in tax dollars on quid pro quo corporate welfare than we would ever need to publicly finance elections, I think common sense would dictate that this way is preferable. But right now, the education on the subject is not there. I consider myself fairly well-informed, and didn't know about Sen. Durbin's proposal until today, despite the fact that he mentioned it on the Senate floor a month ago. We need to apply pressure on this. The relevant Senate Committee is the Rules Committee chaired by Dianne Feinstein. She has agreed to give the bill a hearing, but she is not exactly a champion of this measure. She needs to hear from her constituents on this one, and to understand why this is so very important.

There were plenty of other highlights in the meeting. Martini Republic has a good roundup with a pic. I'll add some bullet points:

• Yes, it was amusing when Durbin boasted that Obama has thousands of friends on "MyFace." But give him a break, he's 62.

• Sen. Durbin was eloquent on the subject of Darfur, and went out of his way to mention it. He's got a four-pronged strategy that includes a "Plan B" sanctions-based effort by the Administration; trying to shut down the Sudanese oil market by using financial institutions (they do their oil business in dollars, and at some point we could possibly head that off); divestiture at the state, local, and personal level; and changing US law to allow us to arrest foreign nationals suspected of genocide on foreign soil (as we can currently do with regard to tortue, a la Charles Taylor of Liberia, who Durbin did actually call "Chuckie Taylor"). A lot of this is going through the newly-created Human Rights Subcommittee created by Sen. Leahy in the Judiciary Committee.

• Durbin supports the Dodd-Menendez bill to restore habeas corpus, and called those who ramrodded the bankruptcy bill through the Senate "heartless bastards." You read that right. He did seem willing to put together bills that may fail for the purposes of getting vulnerable Republicans on the record about various issues. This is how habeas and bankruptcy may go, trying to throw wedges in to split the Republicans (and certain Democrats as well, on those bills).

• On Iraq, the Senate appears to be trying to craft a consensus on next steps. They want a consensus Amendment that can get all 49 available Democratic votes. Durbin seemed supportive of Rep. Murtha's readiness strategy, but stressed the importance of the vote count (as you would expect any former Minority Whip to do).

There was more, but I want to re-stress how important it is that the #2 man in the Senate is on board with full public financing of Congressional elections. This could revolutionize the way politics is undertaken in this country. With corruption on people's minds, there's never been a better environment to introduce something like this. But it has to be explained smartly and honestly to the public in order to succeed.