BIG BROTHER

The committees will also have to report the name of the website where the content appears.

The long arm of the government has found a chilling new way to intimidate new-media.

Political bloggers writing online will be subjected to new disclosure rules under state regulations the Fair Political Practices Commission approved Thursday.

Here's how the State, under California Code Section 82013, defines a “committee”:

“Committee” means any person or combination of persons who directly or indirectly does any, of the following: (a) Receives contributions totaling one thousand dollars ($1,000) or more in a calendar year. (b) Makes independent expenditures totaling one thousand dollars ($1,000) or more in a calendar year; or (c) Makes contributions totaling ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or more in a calendar year to or at the behest of candidates or committees. A person or combination of persons that becomes a committee shall retain its status as a committee until such time as that status is terminated pursuant to Section 84214.

Any writer who receives indirectly or directly, $1,000 or more, will be subjected to this state-required reporting. The FPPC claims this is to corral the campaigns, but it's really aimed at political writers.

That could mean non-profit journalism, which is supported through voluntary donations, will now be under mandatory reporting by the State. (Full disclosure: CalWatchDog.com's parent think tank, the Pacific Research Institute, is a nonprofit.)

Conflict of interest lobbying and Capitol staff

Adding another twist to California's new FPPC regulation, The Sacramento Bee reported Democratic consultant Steven Maviglio, who is also the Communications Director for Assembly Speaker John Perez, has been involved in the decision-making process.

The Bee left Maviglio's Assembly job out of the story. He is paid $9,500 a month by the California Legislature for the part-time job.

“Democratic campaign consultant Steven Maviglio, who writes for the California Majority Report blog and has been working with the FPPC on the regulations for more than a year, said he was unhappy with the final product,” the Bee reported Thursday evening.

“The goal has always been righteous,” Maviglio said. “Implementation is going to be an avalanche of paperwork that is unenforceable.”

Maviglio's “work” with the FPPC on this new regulation is highly suspect. As Communications Director for the Assembly Leader, he does more than just write press releases. He advises the leader on the potential fallout or benefits of certain legislation. And he reports the pulse of the other Assembly members, as well as the constituents they represent. Maviglio plays a big role in influencing what happens in the Assembly.

There is a legislative manual which states a “consultant” like Maviglio can't have clients or do outside business with while on the state payroll, especially where there might be the slightest hint of a conflict of interest, according to a Capitol source who asked to remain unnamed for this story.

History repeating

Maviglio is not alone. Infamous political consultant Richie Ross helped Democrats get elected, and then proceeded to lobby them unabashedly at the Capitol. This went on for decades. He vehemently defended his duel roles, and insisted there was no conflict in his interests.

In 2003, Democratic Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson appointed a task force to address what he referred to as a growing problem of aggressive lobbying tactics and conflict of interest by political consultants who lobby legislators they helped elect. He had Richie Ross in mind after Ross verbally abused the staff members of two legislators who refused to vote against a bill that was of interest to one of his lobbying clients, the United Farm Workers Union, CalState News reported.

In 2006, Gale Kaufman, a top political strategist to Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and the California Teachers Association Union, returned to the state payroll as a consultant to the speaker's office, Capitol Weekly reported.

“'I'm only working part time. I can still rake in the big bucks on the outside,' Kaufman joked in a conversation with Capitol Weekly. “'I'm in and out of [the Assembly] all the time. This time around, for the next little while, I'll be doing some more work, so I decided to go on the payroll.'”

“Kaufman even has a small office on the third floor of the Assembly annex, around the corner from the Assembly floor,” Capitol Weekly found. “She says she will be working out of the office part time.”

The conflict lies with the revolving door between political parties, labor unions, consultants, and paid staff, and rarely with the people doing the writing, reporting and exposing.

But now, Maviglio and his political ilk have influenced more than the Assembly leadership — they've gone in through the back door of the state, into the bowels of state code, in an attack on dissent.

By Katy Grimes

As long as I have followed politics closely — since Junior High school in the 1970’s — I’ve said political consultants will be the death of the Republican Party.

And now, finally, a political consultant finally agrees with me. “The way it works is this–ever since we centralized politics in Washington, the House campaign committee and the Senate campaign committee,  they decide who they think should run,” Pat Cadell said at the CPAC conference. “You hire these people on the accredited list [they say to candidates] otherwise we won’t give you money. You hire my friend or else.”

“Pat Caddell, the Fox News Contributor and Democrat pollster who engineered Jimmy Carter’s 1976 Presidential victory, blew the lid off CPAC on Thursday with a blistering attack on ‘racketeering’ Republican consultants who play wealthy donors like ‘marks,'” Breitbart.com reports.

“When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $150 million at the end of the campaign for the ‘fantastic’ get-out-the-vote program…some of this borders on RICO [the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] violations,” Caddell told the crowd. “It’s all self dealing going on. I think it works on the RICO thing. They’re in the business of lining their pockets.”

What else could possibly explain John McCain or Mitt Romney, or in California, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina? These were all decisions made by the political establishment, despite other viable candidates.

“As a Democrat, Caddell said he could tell the truth about the failings of the Republicans 2012 campaign efforts since ‘I have no interest in the Republican Party,'” Breitbart.com reported. “He compared Republicans unfavorably to Democrats.’In my party we play to win. We play for life and death. You people play for a different kind of agenda…Your party has no problem playing the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters.'”

In other words, Republicans play for big money and self-enrichment, while Democrats play to win. Look at America right now, and look at California… could it be any more clear?

On the Romney campaign, Cadell said, “There was a failure of strategy, a failure of tactics, a massive failure of messaging. Most of all there was a total failure of imagination.”

“Caddell singled out Stuart Stevens, a key figure in Romney’s campaign, in a particularly withering critique. “Stevens had as much business running a campaign as I do sprouting wings and flying out of this room,” he said.

Meg Whitman spent $160 million on her failed campaign for California governor.

She paid millions each to seven consultant vendors:

* the Majority Strategies direct mail concern ($5.4 million)
* Arena Communications, GOP political mail experts ($5 million)
* Campaign advisor Scott Howell, whose “strategic media firm” touts ties to Karl Rove ($4.5 million)
* Tokoni Inc., a social networking concern that worked for Whitman in the primary ($3.8 million)
* strategist Mike Murphy’s Bonaparte Films LLC ($1.1 million)
* SJZ LLC, a Massachusetts fundraising firm founded by Spencer Zwick, an adviser to former Gov. Mitt Romney ($1.1 million)
* Intuitive Technology Solutions, which stages events ($1 Million)

And Whitman brought in the usual big-bucks GOP consultants and advisers, California Watch reported. “Tack on $11.6 million for political consultants, $10.5 million for mail and an astonishing $106.9 million for broadcast advertising, and you get an idea of how Meg Whitman spent more than $160 million,” California Watch reported.

* campaign manager Jillian Hasner ($829,000)

* senior adviser Jeff Randle ($512,000)

* deputy campaign managers W. Todd Cranney ($350,205)  and Tucker Bounds ($273,000)

* press secretary Sarah Pompei ($202,000).

“Even though Whitman’s campaign was largely self-financed, she also spent heavily on fundraising. Payees included GOP fundraising specialist Jill Huerter ($696,000), the online fundraising concern BlueSwarm LLC ($640,000) and On Target Fundraising of Oregon ($528,000).”

Whitman’s campaign is just one example of how much money flows through campaigns, and how much consultants and advisors make, win or lose.

While the California Watch report included some of Brown’s campaign spending, the glaring flaw was the omission of the vast union spending done on Brown’s behalf. Republican candidates face daunting union pushback, but that is no justification for the gross self-profiting.

“You won the House [in 2012] because of the reapportionment that came after the 2010 [Tea Party] victories,” Cadell said. “Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), elected in 2010, and Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), elected in 2012, had to fight this establishment at every step in the process and ‘claw their way’ to electoral success.”