Campaign Finance

The Municipal Campaign Finance Index (MCFI) is an organized accounting of campaign finance laws in all California cities. The Index and its accompanying report supply comprehensive data and context for California’s municipal campaign finance landscape.

On April 7, 2022, California Common Cause will celebrate the organization’s 50th anniversary and honor “Democracy Heroes” who have played vital roles in the fight to strengthen democracy in California. The event will also celebrate the former staff and board members who helped make possible the organization’s accomplishments over the past five decades while laying the groundwork for our next 50 years. 

“Campaign finance is a constant game of cat and mouse. As soon as states and cities institute campaign finance laws, bad actors try to circumvent them,” California Common Cause campaign finance consultant Sean McMorris said. “They’re essentially rolling out the red carpet for moneyed interests and saying we don’t care what anyone thinks.”

Uber, Lyft and other tech companies have raised roughly $200 million on Proposition 22. All the spending — especially after 2010’s Citizens United ruling gave big corporations and unions the right to spend huge sums — rubs some people the wrong way. “So now you have a situation where, if money is speech, speech isn’t free,” said Sean McMorris of California Common Cause, an organization that has called for more transparency in elections. “You have more money, more speech.”

Still, the big-dollar donations are impossible to ignore, argued Sean McMorris, a policy and organizing consultant with California Common Cause. “Those campaign contributions are going to create goodwill between [industry donors] and politicians — whether they be direct or through independent expenditure committees that benefit a particular candidate. The message is received. Any politician who says they can disconnect themselves from the large sums of money is lying.”