Your campaign finance tidbit du jour: Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison – with an estimated net worth of $22.5 billion, placing fourth on Forbes’ most recent list of the richest people in the world – gave California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s nascent 2010 gubernatorial campaign $13,000 Saturday, according to the Secretary of State’s database as updated today.

I think $13,000 is about 5.8 millionths of $22.5 billion. Or, as Larry Ellison might say, a generous tip.

Its path to the June 2010 primary ballot cleared by a federal judge last week, the California Fair Elections Act – which will ask voters whether to test out public financing of political campaigns by applying it to the races for Secretary of State in 2014 and 2018 – has now been endorsed by 18 Bay Area lawmakers.

“One year from election day, our campaign is off to a running start,” said campaign spokesman Mike Roth. “These strong, early endorsements from Bay Area legislators send a clear message that the California Fair Elections Act is gaining the momentum we need to bring about the changes voters want to see in Sacramento.”

The endorsement of state Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, was a gimme, as she authored the law that’s putting the measure on the ballot. Today’s other endorsers are state Senators Elaine Alquist, D-San Jose; Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro; Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord; Mark Leno, D-San Francisco; and Leland Yee, D-San Francisco; as well as Assemblymembers Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco; Jim Beall Jr., D-San Jose; Joe Coto, D-San Jose; Paul Fong, D-Cupertino; Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley; Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo; Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco; Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City; Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley; Sandre Swanson, D-Oakland; Alberto Torrico, D-Newark; and Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch.

A pair of open-government groups have settled their lawsuit against the state Office of Legislative Counsel now that a machine-readable database of lawmakers’ voting records has been made available.

The California First Amendment Coalition and MAPLight.org – a Berkeley-based nonpartisan nonprofit research group that exposes connections between money and politics – said the database became available not long after they filed their lawsuit in December in Sacramento County Superior Court.

“It shouldn’t take a lawsuit for the government to realize its data belongs to the people,” MAPLight.org executive director Daniel Newman said in a news release. “In this new era of highlighting transparency, we hope this settlement serves as an example to city and state governments across the country to provide public access to public information.”

California Legislative data, including how lawmakers vote, legislation in progress, and laws, used to be available to the public only in a plain-text format on the California Legislative Information website. It could be viewed and printed, but provided access to only one bill at a time, making analysis difficult. CFAC and MAPLight.org had asked for copies of the electronic database used to create the Web site, but the Office of the Legislative Counsel had refused their requests.

Now the website offers a “structured database” containing data on lawmakers’ votes in a machine-readable format. As part of the settlement agreement, which is effective today, CFAC and MAPLight.org agreed to dismiss their lawsuit and agreed that they will not re-file any similar suit so long as the Legislative Counsel maintains this structured database at the same functional level at which it exists today.

The settlement agreement also provides that the Office of the Legislative Counsel will release another database, known as the “Inquire” database that MAPLight.org and CFAC seek to review. The agreement also stipulates that the Office of the Legislative Counsel will pay $65,000 towards MAPLight.org’s and CFAC’s attorney’s fees.

“No longer can legislators use the complexity of the legislative process, and the sheer volume of bills and votes, to hide the favors they are doing for special interests that fund their elections,” said CFAC executive director Peter Scheer. “The more voters know about the influence of money on their elected representatives, the less tolerant they will be.”

MAPLight.org plans to use the structured database to create a new government transparency website, MAPLight.org California, modeled after a MAPLight.org Congress website providing transparency tools including a Money and Votes database showing connections between campaign donations and legislative votes.

The Oakland-based Californians for a Democratic Majority PAC on Tuesday gave $100,000 to former state Sen. Carole Migden’s Legal Defense and Compliance Fund.

That’s a big chunk of change from a PAC that had only $149,156.47 in the bank at 2008’s end. But it’s an even greater boon for Migden’s legal fund, which finished 2008 with only $1,725.95 in the bank and $127,419.40 in outstanding debts. The only other big contribution the legal fund has received in 2009 was $5,000 back in January from Feysan J. Lodde of San Francisco, the founder and owner of Fairfield-based MV Transportation Inc.

So, who are Californians for a Democratic Majority? The group’s treasurer is Michael Colbruno of Oakland, who is Clear Channel Outdoor’s vice president of public policy; an Oakland Planning Commissioner; a Democratic activist (a delegate to the 2004 Democratic National Convention and an unsuccessful candidate for the Alameda County Democratic Central Commtittee last year); and Migden’s former legislative director. Lists of the PAC’s donors for the 2008 and 2006 election cycles show it has been funded by a variety of labor unions, Democratic officials and business interests.

Colbruno tonight said he’s one of three people who decide how the PAC spends its money; he declined to name the other two without consulting them first, but said they’d agreed it was “worthy to help her (Migden) out with her legal stuff.”

“She’s had a significant and heralded career doing some great work on environmental and civil rights and foster care work,” he said, adding many elected officials run up legal bills “as your opponents make charges against you, and sometimes you need help with those.”

“I suspect she’s still going to be in the game for a while, she was a great legislator,” he said.

It’s not the first time Colbruno has helped Migden out; in 2007, he helped get Clear Channel to donate a bunch of pro-Migden billboards in San Francisco as her re-election campaign was heating up.

Migden’s legal fund certainly has seen a lot of action. California’s Fair Political Practices Commission in 2002 fined her $16,000 for eight violations of campaign-finance law; in 2006 fined her $47,500 for 21 violations; later in 2006 fined her another $47,500 for another 22 violations; and last year fined her $350,000 for 89 violations – the largest single fine in the FPPC’s history. (Thanks to Calitics for the litany.)

Despite admitting all those violations, Migden sued the FPPC last year in federal court, claiming she should be allowed to use $647,000 from her 2000 Assembly re-election campaign for her 2008 state Senate re-election campaign; the FPPC claimed that money became surplus when she left the Assembly and couldn’t legally be used for the 2008 bid. The FPPC countersued, “seeking more than $9 million in damages for her consistent and deliberate failure to follow California’s campaign laws.” A judge issued an injunction letting Migden use the old funds, and the cases finally were settled in October with Migden agreeing to pay $40,000 to resolve allegations of campaign finance regulations.

Migden – who despite accessing her old campaign funds still lost her 3rd State Senate District seat last year to then-Assemblyman and former protégé Mark Leno - now serves on the California Integrated Waste Management Board that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is so hot to eliminate as wasteful (even though its current annual budget of $235.3 million comes all from fees, not the state’s crippled General Fund). Schwarzenegger appointed Migden to the $132,000-a-year board post in December.

PAQ Inc. — the Stockton company operating Food 4 Less, Rancho San Miguel and other supermarkets throughout the Central Valley — is helping state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, retire almost half his remaining debt from fighting off last year’s abortive, Don Perata-conceived recall campaign.

Though Denham – now raising funds for his 2010 campaign for lieutenant governor – handily defeated last June’s recall effort with 75 percent of voters in his 12th State Senate District voting “no,” campaign finance reports show the Friends of Jeff Denham Against the Recall committee finished 2008 with $308,110 in the bank and $433,050 in outstanding debts. The only major contribution the anti-recall committee had received in 2009 was $5,000 from the Gun Owners of California Campaign Committee last month – until Tuesday, when PAQ laid down a cool $50,000. The company also had given $15,000 last August.

The prize for most interesting campaign contribution of the week once again goes to Democratic gubernatorial candidate and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Real estate investor Thomas J. Coates of San Francisco, a principal in Jackson Square Properties, on Tuesday gave Newsom’s campaign $25,000. Coates is a Republican who put up almost $1 million — $223,400 in contributions and $750,000 in loans — for last June’s Proposition 98, the ballot measure that would’ve phased out rent control in California and curtailed government’s right to seize private property by eminent domain.

I can’t immediately find any reference to where Newsom stood on Prop. 98, but among those who opposed it were Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, former Gov. Pete Wilson, the AARP, the League of California Cities, the California League of Conservation Voters, the California Teachers Association, the SEIU, the California Chamber of Commerce — and, ultimately, 62 percent of voters.

Two weeks ago, I was first to report that Newsom’s campaign had received $25,000 from Rockstar energy drink CEO Russell Weiner, who also is the son of right-wing radio host Michael Savage and a former Republican Assembly candidate; the campaign last week announced it would give that money back, claiming “the confusion caused by the conflicts between the views expressed by Mr. Weiner in his campaign for State Assembly and the views and values of Mayor Newsom are best adressed this way.”

Will Newsom have any issues with Coates’ views and values?

Some East Bay development, political and labor hoi polloi will be hosting a big-ticket fundraiser for Jerry Brown’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign on Sunday, June 14 in Concord; the requested contribution is at least $5,000 per person, and that ain’t chicken feed.

The hosts are developer and former Oakland A’s co-owner Ken Hoffman; United Association of Journeyman and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry international representative Jim Kellogg; developer Al Seeno; developer Ken Behring; lobbyist and former state lawmaker Dan Boatwright; attorney Jerry Hallisey; real estate and garbage hauling magnate Sil Garaventa; State Building and Construction Trades Council of California President Bob Balgenorth; Contra Costa County Building and Construction Trades Council Executive Officer Greg Ferre; and developer Phil Tagami.

The Secretary of State’s database shows Brown’s campaign has banked at least $1.2 million since the start of 2009, atop the $4.1 million it had in the bank at the end of 2008. Say what you will about his politics, but the man looks like a fundraising powerhouse.

Last week, you read it here first that Rockstar energy drink founder and CEO Russell Weiner – son of Michael Weiner, aka Bay Area-based, nationally broadcast conservative talk radio talk host Michael Savage – had made a $25,000 contribution to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign. Weiner told me he and Newsom are longtime friends.

But Newsom’s campaign today said it’s returning Weiner’s money.

“The Newsom for California campaign is returning the contribution of Russell G. Weiner,” campaign director Eric Jaye said in an e-mailed statement. “We believe that the confusion caused by the conflicts between the views expressed by Mr. Weiner in his campaign for State Assembly and the views and values of Mayor Newsom are best adressed this way.”

Russ Weiner ran for the state Assembly in 1998 as a Republican, touting the fact that he with his dad had founded the conservative Paul Revere Society (later stripped of its nonprofit status, and now redirecting Web browsers directly to Savage’s site.)

And Savage just last October was saying Newsom is “in love again with the gay mafia” and “a whack-job as a mayor – ‘Any-twosome’ Newsom.”

Weiner told me a few minutes ago there are no hard feelings.

“I still wish Gavin the best – always have, always will,” he said. “I’m just going to give this money to charity instead, I’m going to give it to Project Open Hand in San Francisco. … Let’s turn a misunderstanding into a positive.”

Last night was the deadline for campaign finance reports, where candidates and ballot measures must report their activity through the end of 2008.

Keep in mind that it is a postmark deadline, so some of the reports have not yet arrived in the election offices.

But here is a quick run-down of what some East Bay candidates raised in 2008 based on reports I picked up in Martinez this morning and checked on-line at the Cal-Access, the state’s on-line campaign finance report web site:

California Legislature

State Senate District 7: Democrat Mark DeSaulnier raised $702,709. His opponent was a nominal Republican who did not campaign due to conflicts with his employer.

State Senate District 9: Democrat Loni Hancock raised $751,151. She spent most of her money in the primary in a hard-fought race with Wilma Chan.

Assembly District 15: This was unquestionably the most expensive contest in the East Bay. Democrat Joan Buchanan, who won the seat, raised $2,390,835. Her GOP opponent Abram Wilson collected $1,384,436. These totals do not include the vast sums of independent dollars spent on their behalf by various interest groups.

Assembly District 14: Democrat Nancy Skinner raised $628,321. She spent most of her money was spent in the primary where she battled against other Democrats in this heavily Democratic district.

Assembly District 11: Democrat Tom Torlakson raised $370,492. He also had a nominal Republican challenger. Torlakson returned to this seat after he termed out of the Senate, where he will serve his final term allowed under term limits. He is running for state superintendent of schools in 2010.

Click through on the right for Contra Costa County campaign finance tidbits: Read the rest of this entry »

Sunne Wright McPeak

California’s increasingly precarious financial predicament will require major reforms of a wide variety, agreed  state leaders and former elected officials who spoke to the Contra Costa Council this morning during its annual CCUSA conference in Concord.

They blamed — not in equal parts — term limits, the two-thirds voting threshhold for budgets and taxes, campaign finance reform, partisan primaries, polemic politics in Sacramento and the Legislature’s inability to focus on solutions that work.

Ex=Business, Transportatoin and Housing Secretary Sunne Wright McPeak even went so far as to diss her former boss, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, calling his decision to roll back the vehicle license fee a terrible one that has helped contribute to at least $6 billion of the state’s structural deficit. McPeak has in the past been very circumspect in her comments about the governor and the three years she worked for him.

Asked how she woudl fix the $41 billion state budget gap, McPeak told the audience she would take three years in order to avoid irreparable damage to schools and social services. But she would hike the sales tax for two or three years and reinstate the vehicle license fee and permanently dedicate it to city and county governments.

McPeak called it a distraction to focus on the two-thirds requirement in the legislature to pass a budget or a tax hike.

“I don’t want ot get to a bad budget faster,” she said.

Instead, McPeak said she would shift the state’s full attention to growing the economy as a means to restore public funds in conjunction with a full analysis of existing state programs’ effectiveness.

Willie Brown

Former Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown’s reform ideas included an end to term limits and called it absurd that the two-thirds voting requirements have been imposed by a majority vote given the fact that these rules would never receive a two-thirds vote.

As for campaign finance, he called for a repeal of much of what he referred to as “so-called” reforms.

“In my time in public office, there were no such things as independent expenditures, he said. ” I was the independent expenditure. The public is entitled ot know who gave money and how much and how it was spent. These modern campaign reforms are bullshit. It conceals what is really happening and never really know the source of the money.”

Click through to next page for recommendations offered by anothe speaker, former Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla of Pittsburg.

Read the rest of this entry »