Dan Walters: Prop. 34 was designed for laundering

Sacramento Bee ^ | 1/5/10 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

California Watch, a new investigative reporting service, told us the other day that California politicians and campaign contributors "have routinely funneled money through county-level political party committees … avoiding strict limits on campaign giving and hiding the source of millions in donations."

California Watch didn't tell us, however, that laundering campaign money to disguise its source is exactly what state legislators intended when they wrote Proposition 34 a decade ago.

Its "strict limits" were designed to give the appearance of reform while encouraging money-laundering and so-called "independent expenditures" so that candidates wouldn't be accountable to voters for their sources of campaign funds.

Proposition 34, moreover, was specifically drafted (in secret) to overturn a campaign fund limits initiative, enacted by voters, that politicians and lobbyists disliked because it interfered with the traditional way in which the former hit up the latter for campaign money and the latter influence the former.

It's doubly, or perhaps triply, ironic that California Watch quoted Ross Johnson, chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission, as being outraged that money was being funneled through parties' local central committees to get around Proposition 34's limits on direct campaign contributions.

"I'm all for strong political parties, but it ought not be an opportunity for an end run around the contribution limits that the people thought they were enacting," Johnson told California Watch.

[ridesthemiles]

Sarah Palin needs to appoint Dan Walters her Press Secretary... He’s very sharp