I’m certainly not a "classicist," but like some other political junkies I have enjoyed reading Colleen McCullough’s series of historical novels about politics, military history, culture, and life in ancient Rome. The parallels of and constants of life 2,000 years ago to today are quite evident in McCullough’s writings. But of course, she is a writer of historical fiction! So after reading all her stuff on ancient Rome, years ago I advanced from her writings to the real thing: Cicero, Julius Caesar, and the writings of a true contemporary classicist, Michael Grant, a British historian and academic.
One of the main things I learned in all this reading was believe it or not, about campaign finance reform! As an election attorney, I was quite interested to learn about the election procedures and rules in the Roman Republic; what inspired them, and how they worked. I was also interested to see that campaign finance reform is nothing new, it has been around for at least 2,000 years! It has its roots in laws that restricted politicians in ancient Rome from investing in anything other than real property as a pre-condition to serving in office!!! The idea was that this would result in decisions by the official that were not influenced by the official’s business interests (other than his real property!). Of course, it didn’t work, and led to a dictatorship that latest far longer than the few years of plutocratic democracy of the Roman Republic. And Rome itself, though it lasted for a long while, did inspire a famous book that includes in its title "the Fall."
In ancient Rome, "free speech rights" were not as important politically to the populous as getting free grain from Africa from the politicians. But in this great country of the United States of America, free speech means a lot more than free grain. Our people have fought and died in battles against dictators to preserve the right of "free speech." That is a very different situation from trying to manipulate campaign finance rules to get votes based on free grain.
Orange County politicians can’t match in character a Caesar or Pompei Maximus and never will. But they can do a lot of damage to our American First Amendment rights if the public isn’t careful to watch their actions. Right now, in the name of "campaign finance reform," the Orange County Board of Supervisors is tinkering with legislation that, while it will throw some free grain at the Shirley Grindle’s of the world (God bless them!) will also set up a "fall" of free speech rights in America’s most Republican county. Shame on them!
Labeled the "County Fair Campaign Practices Commission" act, the Supervisors, led by John Moorlach (and I just do not understand this) are throwing back and forth a new ordinance which will dramatically change how elections happen in the OC.
Under the Act, a new county bureaucracy is formed in this bankruptcy prone county that will oversee the elections of a handful of county officers. Members will serve 5 year terms. They will be vetted by the Grand Jury. They will likely get pay and benefits from the county (assuming it is solvent).
This Commission will have an Executive Director. It is likely he or she will be paid more than the Governor. His job, will be to manage a staff and essentially persistently torture a handful of candidates running for county office. The "ED" as he will be known, will manage an "investigations" unit that will aggressively root out violations by the average of 17 or 18 people running for county office every two years. He will have the power to enforce "remedial" measures and "probable cause" findings and to induce "administrative hearings." (John Moorlach supports this?) "Civil actions" will occur if there is a need to "collect a debt" to the county. The County Counsel must provide free legal services to this Commission. (Hey, Ben DeMayo, just like our times in student government at USC!).
Now, here are several practical problems with this bureaucratic nightmare. Its proponents are proposing legislation that would impose penalties directly on campaign treasurers rather than the campaign itself. This is intended to get more compliance from the 18 or so people running for county office every two years, but the reality is that imposing restraints on professional treasurers is only going to result in getting less professional accounting, since professional treasurers will not want to do the work if they have heightened liability for some other dufus’ problems.
Another problem with this legislation is the added burden on so called "slate mailers." This commission wants to regulate and essentially ban multi-candidate advertising on political mailings. I can say that, having won two cases against the FPPC for such restrictions in 2000 and 2001, and cashing very large attorneys fees checks, these restrictions of First Amendment publishing rights are the most pandering political move I have ever heard in campaign finance reform. It is "grain" for a few, but a denial of rights for the majority. U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Karlton decided under a full-blown trial in this century that slate mail is not more susceptible to "corruption" than any other form of political advertising, including TV commercials. In fact, "slate mail" is a form of political pamphletering that is highly protected by the First Amendment. If the Supervisors are going to pursue this type of regulation of speech, they will end up sending the sacks of grain not to the Shirley Grindle’s of the world, but instead to the long list of slate mail attorneys who have already won their Federal court cases on these issues, and that will surely not pass up the opportunity to win again, and vindicate civil rights, under the Federal civil rights act.
Supervisor Moorlach, please come to your senses! The county does need an ethics act, but it does not need slate mail restrictions to fix the ethics mess in your county!!!