News of the Good

I think I need a little good news, so here goes:

• A Senate Judiciary Subcommittee heard debate yesterday on a bill to cap credit card fees for people in bankruptcy.

Under current law, people filing for chapters 7 and 13 bankruptcy protection are obligated to pay credit card balances along with secured debts, such as house and auto loans. The measure is aimed at punishing credit card companies that raise their interest rates to a high level and at giving consumers who may be on the verge of bankruptcy greater leverage to negotiate better deals with those lenders.

The bill, introduced in January by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), is another weapon the government is wielding against exorbitant rates charged by credit card companies. New regulations issued by the Federal Reserve targeting predatory lending practices are scheduled to go into effect next year.

Tom Geoghegan has a great article on how unlimited interest rates destroyed the economy at Harper's; unfortunately it's not online and only in the magazine. He correctly labels what the credit card industry is doing as usury, which used to be a crime for, oh, 5,000 years, but which is now accepted. This money suck from debtors to creditors fattens the financial services industry and causes bubbles and speculation. It's high time we did something about it. This is good.

• The Obama Administration's Justice Department will release Bush-era torture memos, over CIA objection.

Over objections from the U.S. intelligence community, the White House is moving to declassify—and publicly release—three internal memos that will lay out, for the first time, details of the "enhanced" interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration for use against "high value" Qaeda detainees. The memos, written by Justice Department lawyers in May 2005, provide the legal rationale for waterboarding, head slapping and other rough tactics used by the CIA. One senior Obama official, who like others interviewed for this story requested anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, said the memos were "ugly" and could embarrass the CIA. Other officials predicted they would fuel demands for a "truth commission" on torture.

While Obama's record on civil liberties is mixed thus far, on transparency and disclosure he has done quite a good job. The argument between Obama and Dick Cheney over the weekend was not an argument about detention, necessarily; it was an argument about torture. And the truth will come out. This is good.

• The EPA will review mountaintop mining projects which do great harm to the environment.

Dozens of mountaintop coal-mining permits will be reviewed for their potential impacts on streams and wetlands, the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday in breaking with Bush administration policy.

Announced by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the move targets a controversial practice by coal mining companies that blasts away whole peaks and sends mining waste into streams and wetlands. It does not apply to existing mines, but to requests for new permits, a number estimated to be as high as 200.

I wish it were retroactive, but I'll take it. Mountaintop mining is a horrific practice and steps should be taken to stop it. This is good.

• Sen. Dick Durbin is introducing his public financing bill once again.

After the most expensive campaign cycle in U.S. history, a bipartisan group of lawmakers will introduce legislation this week to create an ambitious voluntary public campaign financing system that would ban contributions from lobbyists and place strict limits on other sources of campaign cash.

Under the proposed overhaul of campaign finance law, candidates would be prohibited from accepting donations from registered federal lobbyists but would receive public matching money for contributions from people in their communities. Advocates of the "Fair Elections Now" measure said the system would weaken the predominance of special interests in politics.

A lot of times, politicians offer "reform" that would do little or nothing to reform anything. This is an exception. Public financing is a proven technique, in Arizona, in Maine, in various municipal elections, to reduce the influence of money in politics. This is good (though I'm not hopeful, despite it being sponsored by members of both parties, that it will be successful).

• A federal judge paved the way for the dispensation of the morning-after pill to girls younger than 18.

U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman in New York instructed the agency to make Plan B available to 17-year-olds within 30 days and to review whether to make the emergency contraceptive available to all ages without a doctor's order.

In his 52-page decision, Korman repeatedly criticized the FDA's handling of the issue, agreeing with allegations in a lawsuit that the decision was "arbitrary and capricious" and influenced by "political and ideological" considerations imposed by the Bush administration.

"These political considerations, delays and implausible justifications for decision-making are not the only evidence of a lack of good faith and reasoned agency decision-making," he wrote. "Indeed, the record is clear that the FDA's course of conduct regarding Plan B departed in significant ways from the agency's normal procedures regarding similar applications to switch a drug from prescription to non-prescription use."

The common argument from the right is that the ability to obtain Plan B will cause promiscuity. Plan B causes nausea and temporary bodily harm, which nobody seek out, and besides nobody on earth thinks that way. What will happen is a decrease in the unwanted teenage pregnancy rate, which is desired by most, and an enhancement of free choice for women. This is good.

Now, some may say that none of this matters, and Obama's taxpayer giveaway to the banks will destroy the country, and overall he's a very bad person. But tell that to the 17 year-old who now can rectify her bad situation, or the residents who get sick from living next to the mountaintop removal mine, etc.

God Save This Blessed Court

It's getting so I try not to read anything with "Supreme Court" in the headline on the last week of June, because that's when all the most controversial cases come down, and given the current makeup of the Court it means "pound progressives into the cement" week in America.

The Court did rule that the death penalty shouldn't apply to child rapists, which, while a horrible crime, is not proportional to state-sanctioned murder. Sen. Obama short-circuited the inevitable Kitty Dukakis question by saying he disagreed with the ruling, but the fact that he did so on state's rights grounds is alarming. I don't know if Justice Kennedy made a well-argued case here, but I don't believe in the death penalty as a deterrent (I don't think rapists and murderers are all that rational) or as a properly applied system of jurisprudence (look at all the problems with cases at the state level) so anything that blocks its expansion is generally fine with me. I wish we had a court that would throw the whole practice out as cruel and unusual punishment and recognize that life in prison without possibility of parole is a pretty stiff punishment.

The other decisions were varying degrees of horrible. The Court stepped into the Exxon Valdez civil case in an activist fashion and lowered the damages to citizens affected by the oil spill. It's outrageous that the shattered lives on the Alaskan coast are worth $15,000, according to the law. And moreover, it shows corporations that they can appeal and appeal and appeal and they will eventually get their way in the highest court, where fealty to corporations is really the order of the day.

Today, in a 5-4 decision the Court overturned the Millionaire's Amendment which ruled as part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that candidates facing a rich, self-funded challenger can raise above the contribution limits if their opponent pumps millions into the race. The ruling also waives several disclosure requirements on the part of the self-funder. What is key here, a signal that this Court will rule against any and all public financing laws, is that Congress cannot seek to "level the playing field."

The argument that a candidate’s speech may be restricted in order to "level electoral opportunities" has ominous implications because it would permit Congress to arrogate the voters’ authority to evaluate the strengths of candidates competing for office. See Bellotti, supra, at 791–792 ("[T]he people in our democracy are entrusted with the responsibility for judging and evaluating the relative merits of conflicting arguments" and "may consider, in making their judgment, the source and credibility of the advocate"). Different candidates have different strengths. Some are wealthy; others have wealthy supporters who are willing to make large contributions. Some are celebrities; some have the benefit of a well-known family name. Leveling electoral opportunities means making and implementing judgments about which strengths should be permitted to contribute to the outcome of an election. The Constitution, however, confers upon voters, not Congress, the power to choose the Members of the House of Representatives, Art. I, §2, and it is a dangerous business for Congress to use the election laws to influence the voters’ choices.

This sounds reasonable enough, but it could be the wormhole to end public financing and eliminate contribution limits. Considering that we're in the age of the Internet where the low-dollar revolution has taught that there need not be a reliance on big corporate money, that could be OK. But not if limits start getting removed. McCain-Feingold was reinforced by a 2003 ruling, so hopefully it'll remain robust. I'm worried that this will challenge "fair fight" funds in use in public money states like Arizona and Maine, where the publicly financed candidate gets extra money if a privately funded challenger spends above certain thresholds.

Finally, there's the Second Amendment case of the DC handgun ban, and in another 5-4 ruling the Court asserted an individual right to gun ownership and struck down the DC law. This is really the end of the gun issue as a political football; the 2nd Amendment has been defined. I don't know if it was defined correctly, but even such Constitutional scholars as Russ Feingold assert an individual right to bear arms. Here's Sen. Obama on the issue:

“I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures. The Supreme Court has now endorsed that view, and while it ruled that the D.C. gun ban went too far, Justice Scalia himself acknowledged that this right is not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe. Today’s ruling, the first clear statement on this issue in 127 years, will provide much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country.

“As President, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen. I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact common-sense laws, like closing the gun show loophole and improving our background check system, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals. Today's decision reinforces that if we act responsibly, we can both protect the constitutional right to bear arms and keep our communities and our children safe.

Actually, that kind of strikes the right balance to me. What I do find striking is that not long ago, Justice Scalia assured us that the Court's ruling in Boumediene would "surely cause more Americans to be killed," yet he doesn't see the same consequence of allowing firearms in everyone's hands. Overall, we have a Court that bounces back between activism and restraint when it suits their ideological needs. It reinforces the need for a Democratic President to retain our core values and not continue on this path of a hard-right agenda in the highest Court in the land.

UPDATE: According to Phillip Carter, the ruling in Heller is pretty restrained, and most current forms of gun control wouldn't fall under it, outside of total bans.

Turnabout, Fair Play, Etc.

Over the last week, this very odd circumstance has occurred where Barack Obama is universally chastised for rejecting public money in the general election, yet John McCain is not touched for accepting public money to gain ballot access and get favorable loans, then dropping out of the system without a ruling from the FEC and spending unlimited amounts in the primary.

Part of this was a total ignorance of campaign finance laws from the punditocracy, but also the silence from the top of the opposing organization. The DNC has filed a number of lawsuits, but Team Obama had yet to break the silence over McCain's illegalities and gaming the public financing system.

Until today.

David Plouffe brought a prop to his briefing with reporter: a copy of John McCain's signature on a state election document in which he attested that he'd be taking public financing.

"John McCain is spending tens of millions of dollars, we believe, unlawfully,' he said, waving the document.

They are raising this issue at precisely the right time. Yesterday five FEC nominees were confirmed by the Senate by a voice vote, allowing them to reach a quorum and act on election matters. Until now, the DNC lawsuits subject to consideration by the FEC were pretty much moot because there was, in effect, no FEC. But that has changed, and the Obama camp leaped on this to push back on these context-free charges of duplicity with respect to campaign finance.

When McCain stated in election documents that he will be taking public money, the normal fee for appearing on the primary ballot is waived. That is a material benefit from the public system despite his spending well above those limits. In addition, there is the matter of the campaign loan, which vowed to stay in the public system as a kind of collateral to ensure repayment. The point is that McCain has double-dipped; he benefited from public money without being held to any limits. And he "withdrew" from the system simply by saying "I withdraw" and without receiving a ruling from the FEC, which they are now in a position to give.

This isn't likely to stop the media from droning on about how callous and cruel Obama is for taking money from the public instead of participating in public financing, but is may move the drone in another direction. McCain's asset of being a reformer has already taken a number of hits this campaign season, but this would be one on a clear issue where McCain believes he has the better of the argument. He doesn't; he's a symbol of why the system is broken, and why Obama's parallel public financing system makes a hell of a lot more sense.

...note that McCain actually faces $25,000 in fines and 5 years in prison for what he's doing right now, if it were adjudicated effectively.

Some Attention Would Be Great

I don't know what it's going to take to get the punditocracy to understand that, while Barack Obama reneged on a fairly vague pledge to enter the public financing system for the general election, John McCain is actually breaking campaign finance laws as we speak by benefiting from public money in the primaries and pretending to opt out at the same time. McCain's simply too cemented as a maverick in the minds of morons like Richard Cohen for this to penetrate, but the DNC is trying, and today they filed a lawsuit:

Washington, DC -The Democratic National Committee today filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in D.C. to compel the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to investigate John McCain's decision to unilaterally withdraw from the FEC's matching funds program despite using the program to financially benefit his campaign - just one of many McCain campaign improprieties. To view a copy of the DNC's lawsuit, please visit [here].

John McCain talks about setting a new standard for "transparency and accountability" yet when it comes to his campaign, he doesn't seem to think the rules apply to him. First, he used taxpayer dollars to secure a loan to keep his campaign afloat in the primary, a move that's clearly against the law. Then the Wall Street Journal reported that McCain refused to pay for his campaign's use of a corporate jet - again against the law - and last week, his trip to Canada came under question for possible violations of federal law.

"Whether it's using a taxpayer funded loan to keep his campaign afloat, refusing to reimburse for his campaign's use of a corporate jet, or violating federal laws on a foreign campaign trip, John McCain has shown an increasingly troubling pattern of impropriety," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. "John McCain tries to brand himself as a reformer but how can the American people believe he'll change Washington when it's clear he thinks the rules apply to everyone but him? We had enough of that with the Bush Administration. We don't need it again with John McCain."

In order to receive matching funds, John McCain signed a binding agreement with the FEC to accept spending limits and to abide by the conditions of receiving those funds. The FEC requires that any request to withdraw from the agreement must be granted by the FEC. FEC Chairman David Mason made this clear in a letter to McCain advising him that the law requires the FEC to approve his request to withdraw from his contract - a move McCain ignored and cost Mason his job.

According to past Commission rulings, the McCain campaign would not be allowed to withdraw from matching funds because it already violated a key condition for being let out of the program - pledging matching funds as collateral for a private loan. McCain obtained a $4 million line of credit -- drew $2,971,697 from it - and documents make clear that the promise of public financing was used to secure his loan.

On February 25, 2008, the DNC filed a complaint with the FEC calling on the Commission to investigate whether the McCain campaign is breaking the law by ignoring spending limits in the primary.The FEC has failed to act within 120 days, so the DNC is now asking the court to require the Commission to act on the original administrative complaint. Now that it appears that the Senate is on track to approve the needed FEC nominations, the DNC is also making clear that this should be on the top of the FEC's agenda.

The problem is that, to a large section of the media establishment, the rules DO apply to everyone but John McCain.

(I only touched on Richard Cohen's column in this post, but you really should read it. The new argument is that McCain's flip-flops don't mean anything because he was a POW. Seriously.)

He Broke His Word!!!

I guess the settled media narrative is that Barack Obama is just a weasel and a scoundrel for breaking his word - his WORD! - about public financing (even though that's a clever misinterpretation of his statements), and he's threatening to topple the whole public system by opting out for the general election. A system that gives us corporate PAC loopholes and 527 groups and all kinds of ways to use money outside the boundaries of donating to candidates. THAT system.

Somehow, the fact that John McCain is breaking the law doesn't come up:

I mentioned earlier today that it was quite a thing to see John McCain denouncing Barack Obama for breaking his word on public financing when McCain himself is at this moment breaking the law in continuing to spend over the spending limits he promised to abide by through the primary season in exchange for public financing. (By the FEC's rules, we're still in the primary phase of the election and will be until the conventions.)

I want to return to this subject though because this is not hyperbole or some throw away line. He's really doing it. McCain opting into public financing, accepted the spending limits and then profited from that opt-in by securing a campaign saving loan. And then he used some clever, but not clever enough lawyering, to opt back out. And the person charged with saying what flies and what doesn't -- the Republican head of the FEC -- said he's not allowed to do that. He can't opt out unilaterally unless the FEC says he can.

Every gallon of fuel on the Straight Talk Express, every rental of a venue for a town hall meeting, every donation phone call, every sandwich futher BREAKS THE LAW. And yet this guy is being sanctimonious about his honorable efforts in campaign finance reform?

It's not about money, it's about ACCESS. A $500 million dollar movement fueled by small donors doesn't create an unethical access problem because an individual $100 donor will have no pull with an Obama Administration. A lobbyist-fueled, PAC-fueled "movement" has a legitimate access problem - there are strings attached to their money. It doesn't matter who's "in" the system or who's "out". And anyway the system is insufficient to 21st-century campaigning.

Of course, to the traditional media, the point has nothing to do with campaign finance, which is a process story. It's about "your word" as they define it, and they will use this to set the narrative on Obama. Expect a lot of negative crap from the media for the next week.

UPDATE: As for the good government groups who are not pleased by the decision, they are advised to get over themselves. Outside of Sen. Feingold none of them have expressed much support for a real public financing system, so spare me the teeth-gnashing.

Barack Opts Out

Prepare for howls and shouts of "no fair, this means you'll have more money than us!" from the right upon this news.

Hi, this is Barack Obama.

I have an important announcement and I wanted all of you – the people who built this movement from the bottom-up – to hear it first. We’ve made the decision not to participate in the public-financing system for the general election. This means we’ll be forgoing more than $80 million in public funds during the final months of this election.

It’s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections. But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we’ve already seen that he’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.

Not that they'll stop, but it's hard for the McCain campaign to criticize this. They can talk about promising to participate in the public system and then opting out, but that's exactly what McCain did for the primary - illegally, to boot. They can talk about runaway spending in elections, but Barack just essentially added $80 million to the federal treasury. They can talk about asymmetrical warfare, but they'd get tripped up by the "money is speech" argument they've been pimping for years.

I believe in public financing, but Barack is right, the system is broken and easily gamed, and to ask him to unilaterally disarm and not rely on the strength of his movement of ordinary people for the sake of principle is absurd. I believe the idea of a "parallel public financing system" where the public and not special interests actually do the financing is another solution to the problem, and actually might get Republicans on the side of traditional public financing just so they can keep pace. At any rate, you can't throw an advantage like Obama would have down the river. This means that every swing state that's even a remote challenge is going to get massive resources. If Obama loses, it won't be for lack of cash.

This doesn't happen without the Internet, and the speed with which Obama caught its potential and used it to build a movement.

Oddly, McCain's already up with ads in some swing states, while Obama is dark. He now knows that the money will come in, so I would hope that he gets something on the air as soon as possible.

Nice Hedge You've Got There

After a weekend of total radio silence on the revelations that the American President approved and designated torture tactics on detainees, a reporter finally got up the gumption to ask John McCain a kind of oblique question about it at the Associated Press annual meeting, without referring to the President. And in his answer, McCain got all mixed up again.

Reporter: Why doesn't the same principle apply to detainee enemy combatants, don't we stand for something better...

McCain: Yes, and I’ve made it very clear, I’ve made it very clear in my statements and in my support of the Detainee Treatment Act, the Geneva Conventions, etc., that there may be some additional techniques to be used, but none of those would violate the Geneva Conventions, the Detainee Treatment Act…And we cannot ever, in my view, torture any American, that includes waterboarding.

The "American" slip-up may have been a slip-up. But the weasel language of "there may be some additional techniques to be used," there, my friends, lies the rub. Considering that McCain already voted against banning the CIA from using waterboarding, which he very specifically describes as torture, then that must be one of those additional techniques. And I'm guessing they wouldn't violate those international agreements and American laws because... the President says so.

McCain is essentially setting out exactly the same position as the President has - forcefully stating that we do not torture in public, while authorizing and directing torture techniques in private, and finding lackeys to write legal opinions indemnifying the conduct. The consequences of those techniques has been nothing short of murder, dozens of homicides of prisoners while in US custody. Let's pick a couple at random:

Detainee was found unresponsive restrained in his cell. Death was due to blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease.Contusions and abrasions on forehead, nose, head, behind ear, neck, abdomen, buttock, elbow, thigh, knee, foot, toe, hemorrhage on rib area and leg. Detainee died of blunt force injuries to lower extremities, complicating underlying coronary artery disease. The blunt force injuries to the legs resulted in extensive muscle damage, muscle necrosis and rhabomyolysis. Electrolyte disturbances primarily hyperkalemia (elevated blood potassium level) and metabolic acidosis can occur within hours of muscle damage. Massive sodium and water shifts occur, resulting in hypovolemic shock and casodilatation and later, acute renal failure. The decedent's underlying coronary artery disease would compromise his ability to tolerate the electrolyte and fluid abnormalities, and his underlying malnutrition and likely dehydration would further exacerbate the effects of the muscle damage. The manner of death is homicide [...]

Cause of death: Closed head injury with a cortical brain contusion and subdural hematoma. Manner of Death: Homicide. Iraqi male civilian detainee died in US custody 12 hours after a reported escape attempt. Physical force was required to subdue the detainee, and during the restraining process, his forehead hit the ground. Closed head injury: subarachnoid hemorrhage over brain, cortical brain contusion, right subdural hematoma. Additional injuries: fractured rib, multiple contusions and abrasions to head, torso and extremities. Abrasions on wrists and ankles consistent with restraint. Hemorrhage of right muscle of neck. No evidence of natural disease. DOD 003329 refers to this case as "1 closed head injury - died 12 hours after escape attempt."

This is, after all, typical McCain. He says that US troops require significant educational benefits but won't sign on to support a 21st-century GI Bill. He attacks Democratic groups that are "funded by George Soros" and has taken hundreds of thousands from Soros himself. He promises "straight talk" and gets kicked off the Project Vote Smart board for refusing to answer the questions in their "Political Courage Test." He calls himself a public financing champion and attacks Barack Obama for possibly opting out of the Presidential public financing system, while he illegally spends money for the primary despite not being taken out of the public financing system by the FEC. And on and on.

The press loves McCain (for the honor of speaking to him, they handed him the gift of coffee and donuts today) so this massive hedge on torture, combined with recent votes allowing the CIA to continue to engage in it, will probably go unnoticed. The elephant in the room, George Bush's admission of guilt in violating domestic and international laws regarding toture, has gone almost completely unnoticed, after all.

McSame

This Bush/McCain press availability is hilarious. The press keeps asking over and over again "Mr. President, is this the worst endorsement that John McCain would ever want" and he got his back up and now he's practically shouting back at the press corps. McCain tried to talk and Bush cut him off. The press pissed him off and now he's yipping like a stray dog. McCain kept saying "I'll appear at events when it fits with the President's heavy schedule," and I'm sure that schedule will suddenly fill up. This was awful.

Brian Williams and Tweety Matthews tried to put the best spin on this, calling McCain a "warrior" and saying how committed he is to his country (not like those softie DemocRATs). But you can't really put a spin on this display.

Bush was all about pulling McCain under his wing, saying that "there's not going to be any change in Iraq and in fighting terror" if McCain comes to power. I'll go a step further, there wouldn't be ANY change. McCain wants to revive the "Just Say No" campaign and continue the Drug War. He's just as just as anti-science as Bush, blaming vaccinations on the rise of autism in the face of all available evidence. His economic policy includes more tax cuts and privatization of Social Security, which is at odds with his own website that's trying to hide the similiarities. His healthcare "plan" won't cover anybody and would amount a big tax increase on employers. He leads a privileged life thanks to his heiress wife and uses his charitable donations to benefit friends and family. And his campaign is suffused with lobbyists (always has been) and would continue corporate control of government.

This independent expenditure campaign is brilliant and they're putting a million dollars into it.



McCain has started his post-primary run to the Presidency on a bumpy road, with the John Hagee situation (which mainstream Jewish groups are now attacking him for), the Vicki Iseman rumors, running afoul of the FEC by pretending to opt in to the public financing system. All of this has really hit his fundraising, where the split between Clinton and Obama and him has been 7-1. The race continuing obviously helps McCain, which is why IE commercials like this are so important. The media loves McCain but there's no story there for the next month or so. While they try to tear down Obama and Clinton, McCain's negatives HAVE to be goosed. He's an unprincipled politician with a long Senate record full of inconsistencies. That has to become the conventional wisdom in the populace, if not in the media.

The 5 Stages of McCain Grief

As McCain fantasy turns inexorably to McCain reality, media figures are truly struggling with how to deal with it. There's a definite 5-stages-of-grief feel to it. With denial and depression we have Joke Line, who knows that McCain's statements on Iraq are reductive and stupid, but can't imagine that, you know, he really believes that:

They'd be taking a country? Last time I checked, Iraq has a Shi'ite majority. McCain thinks the Shi'ites--the Mahdi Army, the Badr Corps (and yes, the Iranians)--would allow a small group of Sunni extremists to take over? In fact, as noted above, the vast majority of indigenous Iraqi Sunnis aren't too thrilled about the AQI presence in their country, either. (The usual caveats apply: AQI is barbaric, dastardly and intent on violating the Qu'ran by engaging in the annihilation of innocents. We can't get rid of them fast enough.)

The sadness here is that McCain knows better. He knows the complexities of the world, and the region. But I suspect he's overplaying his Iraq hand in order to win favor with the wingnuts in his party. That is extremely unfortunate: As McCain should know better than anyone, it is extremely dishonorable for politicians to play bloody-shirt games when the nation is at war.

Giving us the bargaining is Democracy 21's Fred Wertheimer, a McCain ally in the campaign finance reform fight who reacts to the obvious illegality in McCain's gaming the public financing system by trying to direct the issue elsewhere:

The shut down of the Federal Election Commission has taken center stage because there is no functioning agency to deal with the issue of whether bank loans taken out by Senator John McCain (R-AZ), and the collateral provided for those bank loans, means that Senator McCain cannot withdraw from the presidential primary public financing system and is bound by its spending limits for the rest of his primary campaign.

The Washington Post has noted in an article (February 27, 2008), "the dispute centers on the most esoteric aspects of campaign finance law." It also involves interpretations of the loan agreement between McCain and the bank, and the question of what constitutes "collateral" for the loan.

The dispute, which could have enormous consequences for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, is further complicated by the fact that the complex legal questions involved here are being raised in the intense heat of the battle for the presidency.

The unprecedented legal issues involved in this dispute raise questions of both campaign finance and commercial banking law, and are issues that have to be resolved by the FEC and potentially the federal courts.

Democracy 21 does not have the answers to the legal questions that have been raised. There are novel and close questions.

In other words, McCain is a saint and somebody else can figure out if using the public system to get a bank loan and eliminate ballot access fees is, you know, a violation of the spirit of the law.

And producing acceptance is George Will. There's a bit of sleight-of-hand in the op-ed, with Will subtly blaming Barack Obama for holding up the FEC on the McCain matter when it's clearly the fault of Mitch McConnell packaging all these FEC commissioner's confirmations together. But generally this is solid.

First, the Times muddied, with unsubstantiated sexual innuendo about a female lobbyist, a story about McCain's flights on jets owned by corporations with business before the Senate Commerce Committee, and his meeting with a broadcaster (McCain at first denied it happened; the broadcaster insists it did, and McCain now agrees) who sought and received McCain's help in pressuring the Federal Communications Commission. Perhaps McCain did nothing corrupt, but he promiscuously accuses others of corruption, or the "appearance" thereof. And he insists that the appearance of corruption justifies laws criminalizing political behavior -- e.g., broadcasting an electioneering communication that "refers to" a federal candidate during the McCain-Feingold blackout period close to an election.

McCain should thank the Times also because its semi-steamy story distracted attention from an unsavory story about McCain's dexterity in gaming the system for taxpayer financing of campaigns. Last summer, when his mismanagement of his campaign left it destitute, he applied for public funding, which entails spending limits. He seemed to promise to use tax dollars as partial collateral for a bank loan [...]

In 2001, McCain, a situational ethicist regarding "big money" in politics, founded the Reform Institute to lobby for his agenda of campaign restrictions. It accepted large contributions, some of six figures, from corporations with business before the Commerce Committee (e.g., Echosphere, DISH Network, Cablevision Systems Corp., a charity funded by the head of Univision). The Reform Institute's leadership included Potter and two others who are senior advisers in McCain's campaign, Rick Davis and Carla Eudy.

Although his campaign is run by lobbyists; and although his dealings with lobbyists have generated what he, when judging the behavior of others, calls corrupt appearances; and although he has profited from his manipulation of the taxpayer-funding system that is celebrated by reformers -- still, he probably is innocent of insincerity. Such is his towering moral vanity, he seems sincerely to consider it theoretically impossible for him to commit the offenses of appearances that he incessantly ascribes to others.

It's still unclear exactly who will join Will in the acceptance stage. But they're clearly finding an answer for their grief at their soiled Maverick.

McCain's McCain-Feingold Problem

The DNC has filed a complaint with the FEC against John McCain for violating public financing laws.

In order to receive matching funds, John McCain signed a binding agreement with the FEC to accept spending limits and to abide by the conditions of receiving those funds. The FEC makes clear that any request to withdraw from the agreement must be granted by the FEC. In other words, McCain can't just unilaterally withdraw. FEC Chairman David Mason made this clear in a letter to McCain advising him that the law requires the FEC to approve his request to withdraw from his contract.

According to past Commission rulings, the McCain campaign would not be allowed to withdraw from matching funds because it has already violated a key condition for being let out of the program - pledging matching funds as collateral for a private loan. McCain obtained a $4 million line of credit -- drew $2,971,697 from it - and documents make clear that the promise of public financing was used to secure his loan.

Not only that, McCain used his opting into the public system to waive ballot access fees in upcoming primary states. That translates into millions of dollars, so the fact that McCain has claimed that he's received no material benefit from the public system because the checks haven't been cut yet is simply wrong.

The other issue is that the public financing system limits campaign spending for the primaries, and for McCain that means right up until September, when he is nominated at the convention. McCain is almost up to that limit of $54 million dollars, which means he faces the very real proposition of either being broke for seven months, or breaking his own campaign finance law through spending, which would carry a JAIL SENTENCE. FEC Commissioner David Mason has already said that there would need to be a ruling to let McCain out of the public system. Jonathan Singer has more.

What's so interesting about this is that this was supposed to be an issue where Barack Obama was vulnerable because of perceived waffling over whether or not to opt out of the public system in the general election. He's clarified the issue and it won't be a factor, and yet McCain now is in major trouble because of his dirty efforts to game the system.

It's The Lying, It's The Favors

The John McCain/lobbyist story has officially jumped into a serious issue, at least in the eyes of the print media. While St. Maverick is certainly caught in a lie over his blanket denial of writing letters to the FCC on behalf of Paxson Communications, now there are questions over another FCC letter.

WASHINGTON — In late 1998, Senator John McCain sent an unusually blunt letter to the head of the Federal Communications Commission, warning that he would try to overhaul the agency if it closed a broadcast ownership loophole.

The letter, and two later ones signed by Mr. McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, urged the commission to abandon plans to close a loophole vitally important to Glencairn Ltd., a client of Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist. The provision enabled one of the nation’s largest broadcasting companies, Sinclair, to use a marketing agreement with Glencairn, a far smaller broadcaster, to get around a restriction barring single ownership of two television stations in the same city.

Sinclair Broadcasting, as we know, is the right-wing media company that made "Stolen Honor," the documentary hit job on John Kerry in 2004. They broadcast it over all their television stations, and at the time John McCain lamented the documentary as a result of media consolidation. Yet here we have him writing letters to keep exactly that kind of media consolidation in place.

(He really should have gone further, by the way, since his military honor is going to come into question as the campaign goes on.)

Emptywheel has the definitive take on this story, and highlights this point:

For its part, Glencairn appeared to have been getting little support in Congress until it retained Ms. Iseman in 1998.

Edwin Edwards, who was the president of the company at the time, said in a recent interview that after retaining Ms. Iseman, he was able to get heard by Mr. McCain.

“We were pounding the pavement in Washington,” Mr. Edwards said. “We recruited help from as many people as we could. We knocked on every door just trying to get support.”

Iseman certainly had the ability to get McCain to do what was beneficial for her clients. The right can try to make this all about sex, but it's really gone well beyond that. This is about Maverick McReform-O-Straight Talk doing favors for corporate interests. All the time.

Not to mention that he's scamming the public financing system, reducing his credibility even further.

Republican Sen. John McCain might well ride out his standoff with federal regulators over his withdrawal from public financing for the primaries.

The contretemps, however, could haunt him in the general election.

The Federal Election Commission's decision to challenge McCain has forced the Arizona senator and likely Republican presidential nominee to defy the government's top campaign finance regulator in an area of law that McCain himself has helped seed with regulations.

His defiance, legally defensible or not, threatens to strip him of the moral high ground he needs to level the financial playing field for the general election.

McCain's defiance of the FEC, if rulings eventually go against him, carry JAIL TERMS of up to five years. Which of course he knows, since he WROTE THE LAW.

Then there are the confluence of interests between McCain, Iseman's lobbying firm, Carnival Cruise Lines (who leased ships to FEMA under a no-bid contract to house rescue workers in the Gulf Coast for a ridiculously overpriced sum), and Jeb Bush. That one's complicated, but if you're interested it's over here.

McCain has a real problem now, one that's going to carry all the way to November. His integrity is in serious question, and he's building a habit of lying to the press, which is breaking down the firewall he nromally holds, where the media won't report on him critically.

Expect many, many more of these stories.

It Gets Worse For McCain

It's not the sex, it's the lying.

A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist.

On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman's clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.

Just hours after the Times's story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff--and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."

While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue--an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named--"I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]." McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could "possibly be an appearance of corruption"--even though McCain denied
doing anything improper.

Is PAX-TV even around anymore? Never mind, that's besides the point.

This is really, really bad for McCain. He's now contradicted himself in public. This is the kind of thing the media loves to hammer, and today's stories prove that this won't go away. What's more, the FEC is basically telling McCain that he cannot walk away from the public financing system.

The nation's top federal election official told Sen. John McCain yesterday that he cannot immediately withdraw from the presidential public financing system as he had requested, a decision that threatens to dramatically restrict his spending until the general election campaign begins in the fall.

The prospect of being financially hamstrung by the very fundraising system he helped create is the latest in a series of bitter challenges for the presumed GOP nominee, who still faces a fractured conservative coalition as he assumes the mantle of party leadership [...]

The implications of that could be dramatic. Last year, when McCain's campaign was starved for cash, he applied to join the financing system to gain access to millions of dollars in federal matching money. He was also permitted to use his FEC certification to bypass the time-consuming process of gathering signatures to get his name on the ballot in several states, including Ohio.

By signing up for matching money, McCain agreed to adhere to strict state-by-state spending limits and an overall limit on spending of $54 million for the primary season, which lasts until the party's nominating convention in September. The general election has a separate public financing arrangement.

But after McCain won a series of early contests and the campaign found its financial footing, his lawyer wrote to the FEC requesting to back out of the program -- which is permitted for candidates who have not yet received any federal money and who have not used the promise of federal funding as collateral for borrowing money.

The main reason McCain can't back out is that he received a loan using the public financing as collateral. But the most interesting part of this is that the FEC would have to vote to let McCain out of the public system. But they don't have a quorum right now, with the nomination of four members held up in the Senate because Bush won't withdraw the odious Hans von Spakovsky from the position. The other three would easily pass the Senate, but the Republicans have made it an all-or-nothing deal. Who led the fight on the Democratic side to keep von Spakovsky off the FEC? Barack Obama.

What would be hilarious would be McCain going to the White House, hat in hand, pleading with Bush to drop his demands and ditch von Spakovsky so that he can get off the public system that he built.

McCain can deny the sex part of this, and wage war with the New York Times, and get all the wingnuts behind him. But he's been caught in a web of lies, he has lobbyists populating his entire staff, a member of his leadership team just got indicted, his image as a reformer is being buried, and he might not have a dime to spend for the next SEVEN MONTHS.

Oof.

But He's A Maverick!

Marc Schmitt:

And, speaking of reform groups, have you seen the press release from Democracy 21, the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Public Citizen, the League of Women Voters and U.S. PIRG urging Senator McCain to keep his commitment to public financing and stop manipulating the matching funds system for the primaries? No? Me neither. I'm sure it's coming any. day. now.

Cindy McCain is starting to hit Michelle Obama today over some rhetorical flourish. This would be an excellent way to fight back. Really, the major candidates could get a lot out of this. John McCain essentially tried to hold up the public financing system for personal welfare payments while talking about how committed he was to campaign finance reform. That's RIPE for an attack.

Also, this shows the failure of these good government groups, which find themselves as resistant to looking at reality instead of conventional narratives as the traditional media.

That Circular Firing Squad, Gets You Every Time

There are days when I think the blogosphere has well and truly lost its mind. Jerome Armstrong, last seen writing a book about "Crashing the Gates" about the people-powered Democratic movement to take over the party and stop the ruthless Republicans, spends today validating a Republican meme in maybe the stupidest way possible, because the candidate on the other team is being attacked insted of the candidate on his team.

The problem of Obama's public financing 'pledge'

It's gonna get worse if he lets it fester. One way or the other, he needs to make it go away as an issue on which McCain attacks his character.

Obama is already being hammered by McCain for trying to finesse on the issue:

"I made the commitment to the American people that if I were the nominee of my party, I would accept public financing," McCain said Friday in Oshkosh, Wis. "I expect Senator Obama to keep his word to the American people as well. This is all about a commitment that we made to the American people...

"I am going to keep my commitment," he said. "The American people have every reason to expect him to keep his commitment."

This isn't the type of issue that the public gives one hoot about; but the media love this sort of process story, and will continue to air it out as McCain continues to hammer Obama on financing, making it a issue of character.

Character, yes, because John McCain is such a great bastion of character. Especially on the issue of campaign finance, right Jerome? I mean, just this FRICKIN' WEEK he wiggled his way out of the campaign finance system in the primaries.

Presidential candidate John McCain said on Monday he has rejected public funding and its accompanying spending limits as he seeks to wrap up the Republican presidential nomination.

The Arizona senator asked for public funds last summer after his campaign nearly foundered, but said on Monday he does not need taxpayer money as he seeks to secure the party's nomination for the November election.

"That was my thinking, we didn't need to," McCain said after a rally in Virginia, which along with Maryland and the District of Columbia holds primary elections on Tuesday.

The decision will allow McCain to ignore the $54 million spending limit he would have had to observe had he taken public funds, allowing him to train his sights on his eventual Democratic opponent.

So, John McCain jumps through all kinds of hoops to get out of his own public financing pledge, but somehow HE'S the one with character? And it's beyond obvious that he's hitting Obama on this to distract everyone from his own flip-flop. I thought the liberal blogosphere was all about, you know, knocking down bullshit Republican memes.

Leading to this exchange:

Huh?

McCain wiggled out of his own public financing pledge in the primaries. If you can't hit back with that you don't belong in politics. McCain is a craven hypocrite and you're VALIDATING him? Mentioning that he jumped through all kinds of hoops to get out of public financing AFTER HE ALREADY ACCEPTED IT would be nice.

Man, it's sad to see what's become of the liberal blogosphere.

by dday on Fri Feb 15, 2008 at 08:37:01 PM EST
[ Reply to This ]


Obama's the candidate, is he hitting back?

by Jerome Armstrong on Fri Feb 15, 2008 at 08:39:34 PM EST
[ Parent | Reply to This | ]


Look, if you want to act above it all, that's fine. I'd rather, you know, aid a Democrat in a spat with a Republican. It's a little more people-powered.

by dday on Fri Feb 15, 2008 at 09:45:38 PM EST
[ Parent | Reply to This ]


He's not the nominee, last I checked, but I don't mind providing commentary.

by Jerome Armstrong on Fri Feb 15, 2008 at 11:17:11 PM EST
[ Parent | Reply to This | ]


(then I provide the FDL example, and...)

McCain hit Obama on a supposition about the general to distract from his own clear flip-flop in the primary. And you fell for it.

This is a site about electing Democrats, isn't it?

(and "he's not the nominee yet" is an amazingly silly excuse for perpetuating groundless right-wing spin.)

by dday on Fri Feb 15, 2008 at 11:25:20 PM EST
[ Parent | Reply to This ]

It's all so sad. These little groups online have become so wedded to their little candidates (who all suck, by the way) that they see nothing wrong with using whatever smear or attack is out there, even one as painfully dishonest as John McCain's "I am a man of honor" shtick. The liberal 'sphere is completely fracturing over this for no good reason. These candidates don't differ markedly on policy, so it all goes to the personal. And it becomes a long line of bullshit.

So I'm being "fair and balanced," let me call out MoveOn and DFA for unnecessarily hyping the media creation of the "eeeevilll superdelegates" who will subvert the will of the people, when this will never happen in a million years. It's media hype designed to set Democrats at each other's throats. And it's working. (I'll have more on this in a later post, as I actually went ahead and talked to a superdelegate - what a novel fucking idea! - instead of imputing nefarious motives to them.) The liberal blogosphere I know would actually push back against these narratives instead of use them as a weapon.

I feel like Kindergarten Cop or something, wanting everyone around to "SHAATTTTT AHHHHHPPPP!!!!" Sometime soon, in as early as three weeks actually, one of these two is going to be the nominee, and the people with the Obama shirts are going to have to exchange them for Hillary shirts, or vice-versa. And in the real world, where people aren't viewing this like some kind of high-stakes poker game, that's not going to be a problem; both candidates are broadly popular. But in the monkey-flinging-poo fest that is the online community, I really don't see how this fracture gets repaired. And so this people-powered movement Jerome was so fond of announcing splits into a few different ones, or eight, or ten, all with their own petty jealousies and vindictiveness and anger at insults or perceived insults or the fact that their Celtics didn't beat the other guy's Lakers or whatever the fuck motivates these people.

Was it worth it, everyone? Was it worth diluting our impact as a movement to get your candidate that extra 0.00001% in the polls that they needed? Was it really worth validating right-wing smears and things Rush Limbaugh would say? Was it worth all the hysterics?

I don't know, you tell me.

Edwards and Public Financing

Kos makes a very compelling case that John Edwards' decision to accept public financing is a dangerous one. Obviously Clinton and Obama are sucking up all the big-money cash, and with Edwards running a campaign against powerful entrenched interests like lobbyists, it makes ideological sense for him to limit spending and take the public money. But there is an element of unilateral disarmament to it. The spending limits are sharp and the loopholes you have to play to get around them are very difficult. And the biggest conundrum is that, should Edwards clear these hurdles and become the nominee, he'll have six months between the primary and the general election to wait until general election public money comes in. This is what killed John Kerry in 2004, having no money to respond to the litany of attacks like the Swift-Boaters before the convention.

Here's Markos' take:

Short term, this decision is probably necessary and good. The problem I have with this is what happens if Edwards pulls this thing off and locks this thing down on Feb. 5? [...]

What if they end up spending more to wrap up their primary than their current plan indicates. If polling suggests, pre-Feb. 5, that they can win California or Florida with a last-minute push, are they really going to say, "well, we can't spend those millions because of our long-term Summer plan!" Hell no, they'll do whatever they need to do to win, and you couldn't begrudge them that decision.

Except that we end up with a broke or seriously underfunded nominee with six months before the convention. The Edwards campaign argues that the DNC can pick up the slack. And sure, Edwards could funnel money he can't raise to the DNC to act as a proxy. But as we've seen since forever, the RNC always grossly outraises and outspends the DNC. That could change next year, of course. But again, it's a gamble.

And that's the bottom line. If all goes according to plan, then this might not be an abject disaster. But as everyone knows, no battle plans survives contact with the enemy. And I can't personally support a primary candidate that could put us in a difficult position for an entire six months leading up to the fall general election. It's just simply too dangerous.

I still believe that in a Democratic year, with the stain of Bush all over the Republican Party, you can still vote your conscience and choose the candidate that best matches your vision. But this is a calculated risk. I believe in public financing, and the progressive movement certainly wouldn't let a nominee hang out to dry, but going up against the GOP machine with just public money really is bringing a knife to a gunfight. It doesn't bode well for Edwards.

Pyramid Scheme

You do need to check out this exhibit A for changing our campaign finance laws, the story of Linda Chavez, who has run several fundraising operations championing conservative causes that do nothing but enrich her and her family:

Of the $24.5 million raised by the PACs from January 2003 to December 2006, $242,000 -- or 1 percent -- was passed on to politicians, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal election reports. The PACs spent even less -- $151,236 -- on independent political activity, such as mailing pamphlets.

Instead, most of the donations were channeled back into new fundraising efforts, and some were used to provide a modest but steady source of income for Chavez and four family members, who served as treasurers and consultants to the committees. Much of the remaining funds went to pay for expenses such as furniture, auto repairs and insurance, and rent for the Sterling office the groups share. Even Chavez's health insurance was paid for a time from political donations.

Wow. I knew there was a lot of welfare on the conservative side, but this is literally theft, to the tune of millions of dollars. And it's not illegal, that's the most infuriating thing (well, not to me; it's not my money). Conservative charity literally is bestowed on the individuals running the charity. This is little different from a megachurch leader who pours donations into their own personal lifestyle, and in a way it mirrors Democratic donations to politicians who then funnel them to consultants who pay themselves for making more and more advertising. The entire system is self-perpetuating, which is why it'll be so hard to radically change. Every Democratic candidate agreed that public financing should be a goal of the next President, and several have made hay out of not taking lobbyist money. None of them are doing anything as egregious as Linda Chavez; but getting off that money wagon is easy to say and harder to do.

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.

Out of the Ashes, Election Reform?

The LA Times gets downright progressive about voting reform, in the wake of the horrible turnout for Tuesday's school board runoff, where $9 million dollars in voting infrastructure and campaign expenditures yielded a 6% turnout.

A much better solution is to use instant runoff voting, an electoral method that elects a majority winner in a single election.

Here's how it works: Voters rank the candidates in their order of preference instead of just picking one candidate. If a candidate wins a majority of first rankings, the election is over, just like now. But if no candidate wins a majority of first rankings, voters' other rankings are used to determine the winner instantly. The candidate with the fewest first rankings is eliminated, and voters who ranked that candidate first can now have their second choice counted. All ballots are recounted in the "instant runoff," and the process of dropping the last-place candidate continues until one candidate has a majority of the votes [...]

Because this method of voting would save millions of tax dollars, part of that money could be used for an expansion of Los Angeles' public financing system, which might produce more candidates and more competition — which could induce higher voter turnout.

Los Angeles also could change to an all vote-by-mail system. Oregon votes this way, as does Burbank, and it has led to higher turnout in non-November elections. It also saves tax dollars by avoiding the high costs of setting up polling stations and hiring election workers.

Maybe it takes a disaster like the school board election to make people see the light. Of course, IRV and vote by mail and public financing have been around for decades. They were seen as flaky Birkenstock ideas at one point; only some hippie commune like San Francisco could use Instant Runoff Voting, right? But if the staid LA Times can figure out that IRV is efficient, smart and leads to better campaigning.

I am very hopeful that this work will get done in Los Angeles to make voting more in line with the 21st century. Now there's one more hurdle to clear. We just need the Governor to sign the National Popular Vote bill that would reform the electoral college by eliminating the outdated and anti-democratic idea. The Governor has taken no position on the bill this year. He ought to be urged to sign it.