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Election Results Say Some Interesting Things About Corporate Money in Politics

By Joe Consumer

Tuesday was a big election day but the biggest story may have come by way of the supremely ? activist U.S. Supreme Court.  As a charming follow-up to its widely-condemned Citizens United decision that ?gave corporations a free speech right to spend unlimited amounts on election races,? yesterday it issued an ?emergency order? (no written decision or dissent) invalidating Arizona's Clean Elections Law, a voter-approved initiative ?designed to combat corruption in the state legislature.?  The law ?provid[ed] public funds for candidates who agreed to abide by limits on spending and fund-raising.?  The immediate impact is on the gubernatorial race in Arizona, where the incumbent is now blocked from receiving public funds to combat an extremely rich challenger who is vastly outspending her in an upcoming primary.

But also yesterday, there were two amazing stories out of California showing that sometimes, voters can see past money-fueled manipulation.  First, California?s Prop. 17, a terrible insurance industry-sponsored voter initiative, has gone down to defeat despite insurers outspending consumer advocates 16 (million) to 1 (million).  This is nothing short of unbelievable. 

The campaign was ?heavily financed by the Mercury Insurance Group, the state's third-largest insurer? and ?the target of complaints by Consumer Watchdog, the Santa Monica advocacy group that was founded by Harvey Rosenfield, the author of [insurance reform initiative] Prop. 103.?  Rosenfield said ?the measure would allow Mercury and other companies to impose surcharges as high as $1,000 on drivers who have not had continuous coverage. ? [like] students, low-income and members of the military on duty in other states.?

Second, a candidate for a California Assembly District, Betsy Butler, beat out several opponents to win her primary.  Butler, ?who worked in the political arm of the Consumer Attorneys of California, which represents trial lawyers? was the subject of a grotesque smear campaign by big corporations and a California?s ?tort reform? group (the Civil Justice Association of California), which distributed fliers accusing her of being in the ?pocket of big oil, drug and insurance companies.? (!)  This took smear campaigns to a whole new level considering that those ?doing the smearing likely included the big oil, drug and insurance companies themselves. At least one group funding it was, indeed, an insurance organization, the Cooperative of American Physicians.?

Speaking of trial lawyers, Roxanne Conlin, trial lawyer and the first woman president of the American Association for Justice, decisively won her nomination to unseat Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).  

November should be interesting!

Full post as published by ThePopTort on June 09, 2010 (boomark / email).