County seats for sale

While America is heading toward its first “billionaires-only” election for a new president next November, is there anything us local peons can do to save next year’s important elections for new county government leaders?
The era of Dark Money, where a few super-rich individuals and corporations will choose next year’s Republican and Democrat presidential candidates is here. After the billionaires finish anointing a Clinton or a Bush, the rest of us will be allowed to vote while we mostly hold our noses and pretend our votes actually matter. The corruption of money over true democracy has never been greater in our nation’s long history. It is a disgrace we all must share.
Locally, the same shame is fouling our countywide elections. Instead of billions, we’re “only” talking millions.
Any candidate seeking one of the three available Board of Supervisor seats in 2016 will need at least $1 million just to get his or her name on the ballot. That’s how much campaign cash was burned in last year’s Fourth District campaign for both James Gore and Debora Fudge. That total was greatly fueled by “secret money” from non-candidate, independent Political Action Committees (PACs). The million dollar threshold was previously broken in 2012 when Susan Gorin defeated John Sawyer in the First District race.
The big thing about all this “secret” money in Sonoma County is that it is not really a secret. We know who is corrupting our local elections. Almost all the campaign money comes from public labor unions, private construction and real estate groups or an elite group of conservationist and smart growth advocates. These organized special interests have formed independent PACs to avoid local and state campaign contribution limits. Their actions squeeze out true independent voters or citizens without special interests or pensions to protect.
Read this:
“It is time for the people of California (to) put an end to corruption in politics. It is time politicians are made directly responsible to the people — not to purchased demands of special interests. In politics, these powerful interests — whatever their party — usually have one goal: special favors from government.”
The above was written in 1974 as the preamble to the launching of California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC.)
That groundbreaking campaign and election reform law, along with many others across our nation, was written in the wake of the Nixon era campaign scandals of Watergate.
The trouble we face today is that almost all of these laws have been bent, broken or outright rescinded. (Think Citizens United.) As a matter of fact, most of the money laundering and “soft money” crimes that sent Nixon’s Watergate men to jail 40 years ago would be legal today.
But Sonoma County is cleaner, right? All the recent candidates for county supervisor have publicly lamented the $1 million price tag to mount a campaign. But then they point out the cost of direct mailers, robocalls, push polls, endorsement ads and paid staff as “necessary evils.”
Now would be a great time for incumbents Efren Carrillo, Susan Gorin and Shirlee Zane to all make a Clean Election pledge ahead of their re-election bids. Let’s have a countywide election for new leadership based only on Fair Election Laws where no campaign contribution over $100 can be anonymous and is limited to $2,500. Let’s hear all the candidates — both incumbents and challengers — swear off all PAC money and support.
And, let’s see action, not just words.
In the last supervisorial election the Coalition for a Better Sonoma, a Smart Growth advocacy group, said this: “We believe money has too great an influence on our local elections and decision-making process. The amount of money spent in our local elections has reached obscene proportions.”
But in action, the Better Sonoma PAC filtered almost $50,000 in secret money to a single candidate and violated its own “principles” of clean government.
Without some real principles — and PAC elimination — it looks like our new county leadership is still up for sale.
— Rollie Atkinson