Two election bills caused a stir in the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee last week. The first, SB 27, I covered in Part 1 of this series.

Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo

A second bill concerns the use of taxpayer funds for political campaigns, which already is banned by law. But SB 594 is clearly aimed at certain quasi-government organizations which may have found ways to slip around the law by using nonprofit organizations to do their campaigning for them.

The bill, by Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, now seeks to limit nonprofits’ use of public funds to support ballot measures. But the bill language has not been updated online.

At the Elections Committee hearing Aug. 13, Mike McGowan, currently a Yolo County Supervisor, pointed out Hill’s bill specifically exempted the education community from lobbying activities under scrutiny. He also is the former head of the California State Association of Counties, one of the bill’s targeted organizations.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks, said he appreciated the spirit of the bill, but was concerned with the educational exemption, even with Hill’s assurance of an amendment.

Sen. Hill was quick to acknowledge this exemption and assured the committee he would accept amendments to the bill to include in the ban the politically active educational community, including the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers.

Whom is the bill targeting?

The other major target of the bill is the League of California Cities, whose mission is to expand and protect local control for cities through education and advocacy. So it opposes SB 594. Since taking office in 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown has already taken a significant amount of local tax money for his budget, claiming it was needed to shore up the state’s budget deficit.

The league challenged the state legally over the dismantling of redevelopment agencies, which shifted $1.5 billion a year from the cities to the state. But the league lost in court. And the league has raised money to support ballot measures to protect municipal funds from another state take-away.

Through CITIPAC, the league’s political action committee, the league actively campaigns for ballot measures and other issues relevant to the interest of California cities.

Dan Carrigg, legislative director for the league, sent a letter to Hill expressing the League’s displeasure with SB 594. “According to the analysis … you allege that nonprofit organizations such as ours are co-mingling public and private resources and ‘using the co-mingled funds for campaign activity.’ … the analysis asserts you indicate there is a ‘credible reason to believe that nonprofit organizations are making campaign expenditures from accounts that are financed in whole or in part with public dollars. We completely reject this allegation.”

At the hearing, Carrigg said the league “has scrupulously adhered to all legal requirements associated with ballot campaign activity” and that it “regularly advises its members on the scope of the existing use of public funds prohibition.”

On its website, the League said, “The bill’s author, Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo), claims SB 594 seeks transparency, when in reality it is an end-run effort to target organizations from expressing their policy positions on statewide ballot measures.

“SB 594 creates a new mechanism to punish local government organizations for representing its members in the political process. SB 594 is based on unfounded allegations that nonprofit organizations are ‘co-mingling’ public and private resources.”

Donnelly said, “For SB 594 by Jerry Hill, the only attempt to curtail the illegal use of public funds for campaigning, ironically exempted the use of schools and school personnel. That is until he agreed to take my amendment to include them in Assembly elections committee this week.”

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, California Common Cause, Alliance for Justice and Californians for Clean Campaigns support SB 594.

California lawmakers object to “dark money,” a term for campaign contributions used to pay for an election campaign without disclosing the source of the money. But while Democratic lawmakers object to “dark money,” they don’t seem to want to talk about public employee union campaign contributions.

On Aug 13, the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee heard testimony on several bills that supposedly would “reform” the campaign money process.

Dark money

SB 27, by state Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, and SB-594, by state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, were the two standout bills.

SB 27 would require state ballot measure committees and state candidate committees which raise $1 million or more for an election to maintain an accurate list of the committee’s top 10 contributors, and provide that list to the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

SB 27 was sparked by the now infamous contributions last fall from Phoenix-based Americans for Responsible Leadership, an Arizona nonprofit organization. According to Correa, ARL donated $11 million. Receiving the money were the campaign against Proposition 30, which raised Californians’ taxes $7 million; and the campaign for Proposition 32, which would have prevented labor unions from automatically deducting union dues for political campaigns.

After a court battle with the FPPC, this “dark money” nonprofit group revealed that it was not the original source of the $11 million contribution but merely an intermediary. “They disclosed the true origin of the money was another nonprofit, and another nonprofit,” Correa said at the hearing.

Correa said the purpose of his bill is to require nonprofits to reveal the true sources of campaign contributions. While Correa’s bill is sponsored by the FPPC, other groups stepped up to renounce “dark money.”

The original source of this campaign money is still unknown to the public and the matter is still the subject of an ongoing FPPC investigation, Correa added.

However, ARL lost handily on both counts. Prop. 30, backed with more than $30 million in union money, won 55-44, And Prop. 32, opposed with more than $60 million in union money, lost 57-43.

Who is allowed to lobby?

“I see this as an attempt to silence and crush out dissent,” said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks. “Government and media demonize opponents’ positions.”

Donnelly asked Correa why, if SB 27 was intended to shed light on the sources of money flowing into campaigns, the educational system was not also being scrutinized for openly lobbying on behalf of Prop. 30? State law prohibits public officials from using their offices to promote initiatives.

Donnelly said teachers and school administrators handed out flyers to students and parents, and talked in classrooms about the need for the parents to vote for Prop. 30. “It’s an illegal use of state resources,” Donnelly said. “But nobody here talked about the illegal use of K-12 grade employees and the university system being used to lobby parents on Prop. 30.”

Zackery Morazzini, counsel for the FPPC, suggested Donnelly file a complaint. Morazzini explained his department was just the enforcement arm of the FPPC and could not do anything without a complaint. But he assured Donnelly that the FPPC has gone after many public entities.

“To hear from thousands of Californians that their schools were using public resources to lobby on behalf of Prop. 30 was deeply disturbing,” Donnelly said. “But when you’re only going after one side, I can’t get behind that. We have a much more corrupt system here than just the ‘dark money.’”

California Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, and the Alliance for Justice, which “represents thousands of legitimate nonprofits,” according to its representative at the hearing, support SB 27.

The California Clean Money Campaign, also in support of SB 27, is more of a mystery. Also a nonprofit, the CCMC appears to be largely staffed with community organizers. And it is unclear where their own funding comes from.

But each of the groups in support of SB 27 was largely mum on campaign funding from public employee unions.

Classroom advocacy

I covered a situation of campaigning and lobbying in the classroom at California State University, Fresno during the 2012 election. Despite receiving a rebuke from school officials, professors and teachers had no intention of stopping.

“State college instructors and professors continue to promote Prop. 30 during class time, according to Daniel Harrison, a student at California State University, Fresno, and president of the Fresno State College Republicans,” I wrote.

“From talking about Prop. 30 during irrelevant class time, to student fees funding campaign materials, to giving an essay exam question mandating students explain the rationale and virtues of Governor Brown’s tax initiative, Fresno State is using taxpayer dollars for illegal political advocacy,” Harrison said during an interview.

During the campaign, one professor even assigned an essay question on a midterm exam, demanding that students “argue for virtues of Proposition 30 by referring to relevant parts of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s political philosophy.” The professor’s instructions included, “You will not earn any credit at all just by saying what Prop 30 is all about. Your goal is to demonstrate that you can use J.J. Rousseau’s ideas and concepts to explain the rationale for Prop. 30.”

“Prop. 30 is the poster child for a campaign that misused public resources,” Donnelly told me after the hearing. “Not only was the use of public school classrooms to campaign for the massive tax increase illegal, but the very idea of using the unlimited resources of government to lobby against the interest of hardworking taxpayer is downright immoral.”

Part 2 tomorrow.