August 20, 2006 – Town Hall Meeting in Palo Alto
No On Prop. 89 and AB 583, the so-called “Clean Money & Elections Act”
Today, I attended the first series of Town Hall meetings that my opponent, Ira Ruskin, has held in the two years he has been in office to hear his views on campaign finance reform in California. He specifically discussed Assembly Bill 583, the California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act. On the November ballot, there will also be an initiative, Proposition 89, with a similar intent.
The bill is convoluted on how a "qualified candidate" would receive public funds for a campaign. In principle, while the bill might appear to be reasonable, as usual, taxpayers will pay for it. AB 583’s funding formula would appropriate $106 million from the state’s general fund annually to pay for qualifying candidates’ campaigns. According to Mr. Ruskin, this would be the cost for year one. The cost in subsequent years would increase. Mr. Ruskin believes this "experiment" is "a better system than we have now. Some people ask, ‘Can we afford that kind of investment?’ How about ‘Can we afford not to?’”
After the Town Hall meeting, I was interviewed by the Palo Alto Daily, which quoted my response to Mr. Ruskin’s question, “Can we afford not to?”
Republican challenger Virginia Chang Kiraly believes Californians can.
She is running against Ruskin in November for the District 21 seat and is vehemently opposed to publicly funded campaigns, going as far as calling such reforms “unconstitutional.”
“If there is $106 million in the general fund to be spent, it should go toward education or health care,” she said.
“I’m the kind of candidate that would benefit from this,” Chang Kiraly said. “But talk about taxation without representation. I would feel terrible if someone who didn’t support my issues paid for my campaign. I think (reform) is needed, but not at taxpayer expense.”
The most frightening part of the discussion was Mr. Ruskin’s response when someone asked if blog groups might be considered as Independent Expenditure Committees, which can receive unlimited funds to support a candidate BUT WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF AND COLLABORATION WITH THE CANDIDATE and from which Mr. Ruskin benefited in his first election in 2004.
Mr. Ruskin’s response was that limiting bloggers on the internet might be considered when it comes to political campaigns. I am a huge proponent of the First Amendment and free speech and am angry and aghast that Mr. Ruskin would even think about limiting free speech on the internet. The only person involved with the presentation who was thinking of the First Amendment issue was Mr. Ruskin's Chief of Staff, who had to remind him of it in front of his audience!
Mr. Ruskin's comments shed light on the fact that AB 583 and Prop. 89 are slippery slopes when it comes to our First Amendment rights! In Buckley v. Valeo, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that there cannot be expenditure limits for political speech for individuals and groups because it would cause"substantial restraints on the quantity of political speech." This ruling may not be perfect, but it respects our right to free speech by protecting our First Amendment rights. Free speech must not be compromised.
Here are two articles that state the problems with Prop 89:
www.sacbee.com
www.sacbee.com
What can you do about this? Write and/or call your legislator to vote NO on AB 583. In November, vote NO on Prop. 89. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this issue, so feel free to email me at contact@VirginiaChangKiraly.com.