Email  Print

Prop. 32 is phony campaign finance reform

Editor, Index-Tribune:

    

  It may interest your readers to know that the Lincoln Club of Orange County, the ultra-conservative group that was the driving force behind the Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision giving corporations the same status as citizens in the matter of campaign contributions, has been at work here in California to put Proposition 32 on the November ballot.

  Proposition 32, the “Stop Special Exemptions Now Act,” is not what it seems. It purports to strip both Unions and Corporations of the power to raise political funds through dues deduction, but since Corporations don’t raise their funds that way, only Unions will be affected. Proposition 32 does nothing to stop the power of the secretive Super PACs that were established by Citizens United.

  Proposition 32 will make it even easier for billionaire businessmen and corporate special interests to rig the system and write their own rules. Unions representing teachers, nurses and firefighters would be weakened. The result would be an even more unbalanced system, in which regular people have even less of a voice in the political process. Corporations already outspend Unions 15 to 1. Proposition 32 will make that score 15 to 0 – not a balanced approach to campaign finance reform.

  Until Citizens United is overturned, voters need to reject phony, one-sided “campaign finance reform” such as Proposition 32.

  Randall Cook

  Sonoma