Section 18205 of the California Elections Code says the following:
A person shall not directly or through any other person advance, pay, solicit, or receive or cause to be advanced, paid, solicited, or received, any money or other valuable consideration to or for the use of any person in order to induce a person not to become or to withdraw as a candidate for public office. Violation of this section shall be punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for 16 months or two or three years.
This is more than just a theoretical consideration, given what happened back in the 1986 California Republican primary to select a U.S. Senate candidate. Congresswoman Bobbi Fiedler was one of many Republicans seeking the nomination, as was State Senator (and former Los Angeles Police Chief) Ed Davis. At one point Fiedler and Davis met to discuss Davis' possible withdrawal from the race. Davis claimed that Fiedler attempted to bribe him to withdraw and endorse her in exchange for her assistance in raising money to pay off his campaign debts. Davis had himself wired for the meeting, and Fiedler and her campaign manager (later husband) were consequently indicted for violating Section 18205.
Section 18205 covers any "valuable consideration" (which can often be difficult to define). It doesn't have to be money. In this case Ed Davis tried to stretch that definition as far as he could. Being a past Los Angeles Police Chief, he had friends in the District Attorney's office who helped him out.
Bobbi Fiedler argued that she had made no explicit promises to Davis; that she was merely trying to help out a friend who'd built up a campaign debt; and that there was no "valuable consideration" involved. The tape recording tended to back her up. She didn't outright say "If you drop out of the race and throw your support to me I'll pay off your campaign debt in exchange." It was more along the lines of "We share similiar political ideas, and the polls indicate I have a better chance of winning the nomination, so why not withdraw and back me? Oh, and by the way, don't worry that dropping out will make it impossible for you to raise any more money to pay down your campaign debts. I'm willing to help with some fundraising events and make some phone calls to donors I know."
The jury agreed with Fiedler and found her and her manager innocent, but by then it was too late. It destroyed both her Senate campaign and Davis' Senate campaign, and left an enormous amount of bad blood, especially among Ventura County Republicans.
Tom McClintock started his career as a legislative assistant to State Senator Ed Davis. You can be damn sure that Tom is extremely familiar with Section 18205. Arnold (and anyone associated with his campaign) will have to be very, very, very careful about making any "offers" to Tom to try to get Tom to drop out of the race.
I think nevertheless that is a broad definition of 18205 for these purposes. I would like to know the legal definition of "withdraw", even if the candidates name is still on the ballot. Are you assigning an expanded definition? I believe you would have to give me solid precedent (multiple) and additional case law for me to consider this as contrary to the stipulations engendered in Sec.18205. The point is, with knowledge of bribery and influence laws, I suggested a workable proposal that could be achieved. There would be precedent for the action I have suggested, which has not been prosecuted in the past.
These are the kinds of posts and ideas we need for this thread. I want the idea hit and bashed and worked through line by line as a potential alternative.