California’s top 15 private interest groups spent more than $1 billion on political campaigns, ballot measures and lobbying between 2000 and 2009, according to a new report from the Fair Political Practices Commission, the state’s political watchdog.
The top spender was the California Teachers Association, at more than $211 million, and number 2, a distant second, was the biggest state employees union. Three Indian tribes were among the top 15. The list also included the state’s two biggest utilities, three energy interests, big pharma, the hospitals and Philip Morris USA, among others.
The FPPC says the totals are troubling:
“The reality in politics is that money talks. Sometimes money shouts. If it didn’t, special interests simply would not spend so much money trying to influence public policy
and elections. They know that the more money they spend on behalf of a candidate or in support of or opposition to a ballot measure, the greater the chance of success. In California, special interests have very deep pockets….
This report leaves little doubt where the vortex of political power lies in this state. The numbers tell the story. And there is no end in sight to the spending binge by special
interests.”
While it is not clear how the state would be different without all this money spent, one can imagine. The schools might be more oriented toward the desires of parents and students rather than teachers. The state’s pensions and long-term health care obligations might be on the table for discussion. We would have less gambling, and perhaps higher taxes on oil and other business interests.
The question is what, if anything, you can do about it. California already has fairly strict limits on direct donations to candidates. But the courts have ruled that interests have a right to spend their own money to express their opinions as long as they act independently of candidates and elected officials. That right to political speech is embedded in the First Amendment and is a core value of our political system. Most of the money spent by the players on this list went into ballot measures and lobbying, activities that are unlikely to be limited by any reforms.
We’ve yet to see a political finance reform that can truly take the money out of politics. At best it gets moved around. Sometimes it gets even harder for the public to follow.
Disclosure and vigilance are the best defense. If the information is readily and easily available, and if the voters pay attention, no amount of spending can overcome the power that people have to simply think for themselves and act on what they know.
Here is the list:
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The Billion Dollar Decade: Top spenders |
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