Whitman’s Money Puts Her in Not-So-Welcome Company
It’s $39 million and counting for Republican Meg Whitman.
And people thought Jerry Brown was exaggerating when he told a San Francisco radio show last week that the former eBay CEO was planning “the paid takeover of the airwaves of California.”
Whitman’s decision to drop another $20 million into her campaign for governor puts her in rarified company. Four years ago, state Controller Steve Westly, who also got rich at eBay, spent $35 million in the race for governor, while in 1998 airline tycoon Al Checchi wrote about $40 million in checks in an effort to become California’s governor.
Of course neither Westly nor Checchi made it out of the Democratic primary, which might be a warning to Whitman that money doesn’t always equal votes.
Checks & Balances in the Bay State and the Golden State
I grew up in Massachusetts and I live in California. Two pretty blue states on the political map. The Scott Brown election focused attention on a Republican winning a big race in a blue state. Many reasons have been given for this upset, but I wonder if something subtle was at work in this election. While both states are considered solidly blue with dominate Democratic legislatures for most of half-a-century, approximately two-thirds of that time each state has had Republican governors.
Do the voters in these two coastal states consciously want to restrict the power of a dominate party? Do the citizens vote their own check and balance system in place?
I once asked this question of Claremont McKenna College political science professor John Pitney. He said he was not aware of any studies to test the theory. Is it coincidence or is something at work here?
State Legislator Checklist for 2010
Our elected leaders have been back in session for just over
two weeks and once again it is clear that the majority of their time will be –
must be – dominated by the budget. Our recession still runs deep, scores of
Californians are still waiting in the unemployment line, and businesses –
mostly small businesses – from Del Norte to Del Mar are still shutting their
doors at a clip. As we face
another crushing multibillion dollar state deficit, who can blame them?
Well, California voters can, and they’d be justified.
Voters actually have an opportunity to make a positive
change for the Golden State this November. We can make the bold decision to
remove those officials who continue to force us to bail them out for their
reckless partying, and instead we can support individuals who demonstrate that
they genuinely care about Main Street, jobs and the livelihood of our state.
Get a good lawyer!
Yesterday’s landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizen’s United case has now opened the door for unlimited corporate and union general treasury spending on independent expenditures for express advocacy of the election or defeat of Federal candidates across the country. But here in California, the new rules aren’t going to be so much different from the rules that have governed state candidate and measure elections for some time. And because of gerrymandering as a result of the almost permanent hold the Democrats have had on the California Legislature, there are hardly any "competitive" Federal general elections in California for its 53 congressional seats, for the new rules to have much impact.
Even though California adopted a sweeping "Political Reform Act" in the 1970s, that law and subsequent amendments have always allowed direct corporate and union spending on state and local candidate elections, as long as the spending was independent of the candidate. Some cities, like Los Angeles and Long Beach, and San Diego County, have responded with their own local rules that attempt to restrict these independent expenditures, whether made by an individual, corporation, or union.
The Case Against Big Government
For anyone watching Tuesday night’s
Special Election in Massachusetts and still wondering what all the fuss is
about, let me break it down for you.
Americans are mad as hell and they’re not
going to take it anymore.
What’s with all the anger? A recent viral
e-mail I received illustrates that people have finally begun to see firsthand
that "big government" – and the big spending that comes with it – is not only
wasteful, but it simply doesn’t work.