Prop 34: Did it reduce money’s influence on elections? The verdict is in.
In the November 7, 2000 General Election, California voters, by a margin of 60 percent to 40 percent, passed Proposition 34, which placed limits on the amount an individual, corporation, labor union or political committee can contribute to a candidate for the state legislature … currently $3,600, or double that if the contribution comes from what is called a "small contributor committee."
Prior to the passage of Proposition 34, there were no limits on the amount that any individual or interest group could give to a candidate, and it was not uncommon for wealthy individuals and others who had an interest in who was elected to the state legislature to, in fact, give large sums of money directly to a political candidate they favored.
Passage of Proposition 34, supporters claimed, would put a stop to this and thus significantly reduce the influence that powerful special interest groups and wealthy donors have on state legislative races.
How has it worked?
Common Sense CA: $125K Grant Program for Citizen Engagement
Over the last several years, there have been a growing number of civic engagement projects in California from the city through to the state level. Last August, Governor Schwarzenegger plus top legislative leaders participated with over 3,000 Californians in a day-long survey about health care, entitled, "CaliforniaSpeaks on Health Care Reform". In San Mateo County currently there is a county-wide campaign to involve residents and commuters in a series of dialogues around the subject of affordable housing. The project, called, "Threshold 2008" was originated by a diverse group of county residents – from business people to open space advocates – who saw a possible crisis in the lack of affordable housing in the region.
And that’s not all, large cities from San Diego to San Francisco, and smaller ones like Chula Vista and Morgan Hill, have convened citizens in "community conversations" around policy decisions ranging from airport planning to budget prioritization. In most of these instances, municipalities and school districts have been pushed to a crisis point, where a budget deficit or immensely expensive (and controversial) land use decision precipitates public involvement.
Do a Tax Commission Right This Time
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass says California is a 21st Century economy laboring under a tax structure mostly built in the 1930s. She’s right. Improving the tax structure for the new era is the right thing to do.
Gold Rush era California economist Henry George had a saying about the tax structure that applies even today. "The mode of taxation is, in fact, quite as important as the amount. As a small burden badly placed may distress a horse that could carry with ease a much larger one properly adjusted, so a people may be impoverished and their power of producing wealth destroyed by taxation, which, if levied in any other way, could be borne with ease."
Speaker Bass said she will convene an independent commission to look at restructuring the tax system. Governor Schwarzenegger likes the idea and says he too will create a Tax Modernization Commission to make recommendations on better aligning the tax system to the modern economy.