by Jack Lee
Every State level politician is probably guilty of a “cozy dance” with someone with big money to give. This is a huge problem today for the voters and no matter what party you belong too, everyone is being shafted and denied free, fair and open elections. Make no mistake, politicians need huge amounts of money to run campaigns only because they have been one upping each other for years, not because the price of ink has gone up!
The only place candidates and incumbents can get the big money to “buy” their election is from those who sit the Godfather seat, we call them the special interest groups. They have lobbyists with far more clout to get through your legislator’s door than you ever will because of the bags of money they bring.
The voters are just too weak to weed out the rampant [buying and selling] of influence in our State capitol. God knows we’ve tried with any number of Propositions in the past two decades, but right after they were approved by the popular vote, they were all sued to death in court. The Dems or the Reps or both have made sure no reform to this system will take place and they have the audacity to hide their dirty dealings behind the banner of free speech, which only ads insult to injury. Money, we’re told, equals free speech and the more money you happen to have the more speech you will get until those of us without money have been drowned out and we have no voice. And this is supposed to be fair and what the framers of our Constitution had in mind? The two big parties keep telling us it is, but I won’t back off from this fight because I’m 100% right.
This is a horrible travesty of injustice and it does nothing good for the cause of free speech. The poor quality of State governance ought to be evidence enough to even the most blind partisan hack to see our electoral system in California is as broke as our state treasury.
The San Jose Mercury Newspaper did a long and indepth series of stories that clearly lined up the big campaign contributions with legislation that followed and eventually became laws to benefit one special interest group over another. The newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize, but not one thing changed in Sacramento despite the outpouring of support by the voters who sought reform. Polticians are very reluctant to take a stand against popularly supported issues, but because this one is their life’s blood they will do it every time and without hestitation, because the Dems and the Reps are addicted to the money. They can’t help themselves. They are too desperate to out fundraise the other guy they really don’t care how they get the money. We have too many examples of how they will throw in with the devil just as long as they get the bucks. Money is power, power is money and the whole thing is a process of corruption that begins the first time they run for office and you wonder why this state is so poorly run?
This sickens me about politics in general and about my Republican party in specific. I aligned myself with the GOP because I thought they stood for raising the bar and fighting back the tide of socialism, but political expediency tells another story. The dems…eh, I never expected much out of them anyway, but reps are supposed to be more virtuous. Reality says the more desperate they are to recover their once dominant status in this State, the more willing they are play ball with almost anyone if they have enough cash to donate.
In the last election The GOP sold out to a consortium within the Indian Gaming industry in order to pass special interest legislation. The GOP would never have supported the plethora of initiatives they endorsed if it were not for the milions in donations they received. And that endorsement eventually gave a group of casinos in SoCal sway over the state gaming. That’s a real sad commentary to our late great GOP party.
We the people are losing the battle for honesty in politics because the big money is all on the wrong side. Nobody in Sacramento, except the most squeeky clean and honest, supports campaign finance reform and the honest people are such a tiny minority, well, they just don’t have a chance of success to change anything and that means neither do you. This is the ultimate Catch 22.