News Clips

When corporate profits are at stake, campaign spending often balloons, said Kati Phillips of California Common Cause, which advocates campaign finance reform. “Health care measures are expensive,” she said. “There’s a lot of money to be made off of sick people.”

Instead of the properly integrated computer program that was needed, the agency launched in April with disparate computer systems that didn’t automatically link together, according to advocates who have been working closely with the DMV on the new “motor voter” system. That meant DMV workers had to manually link information from various systems during transactions between April and September, when an integrated system was put in place, said Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause.

New York City requires any candidate who accepts public funding for citywide office to participate in debates," said Kati Phillips, a spokeswoman for California Common Cause. They've spent three years trying to develop a similar model in Los Angeles. "We are one vote away from requiring all city council and citywide candidates to participate in a debate or town hall to qualify for public financing," Phillips said. "Previously the law had a loophole — candidates just had to agree to a debate, not actually show up!"

“This is part of a much larger conversation now. The timing of the bill was opportune,” said Kathy Feng, executive director for California Common Cause, a political transparency group that supported the bill. Brown signed the bill Sept. 26, but did not issue a statement about it.

A new report out Wednesday from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found continuing voting problems for people of color and people with disabilities. The report took a national view, but some of these challenges have been playing out in California.

Raise your hand if you think money plays too big a role in politics. We may be naive, but we wouldn’t be surprised if a few officeholders out there are holding their hands in the air, because they’d like to spend less time with their palms out. It’s expensive to communicate with voters. Mail and advertising cost a lot of money, and legislative candidates can burn a lot of fuel getting around geographically large districts.