Having failed in their mid-campaign attempt to blackmail Prop 8 opponents, Prop 8 supporters have now filed suit to end any disclosure of donations to political campaigns, citing evidence of harassment and menace. Via Calitics, the Sacramento Bee reports:
The Proposition 8 campaign has filed a federal suit challenging the constitutionality of California’s campaign finance laws that compel disclosure of personal information by campaign donors who they said have been threatened and harassed.
The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, cites numerous examples of menacing e-mails, phone calls and postcards, including death threats, allegedly made by opponents of the November ballot measure that banned same-sex measure in the state.
"This harassment is made possible because of California’s unconstitutional campaign finance disclosure rules," Ron Prentice, chairman of the Yes on 8 campaign, said in a prepared statement.
Prentice noted that as applied to ballot measure committees, "even donors of as little as $100 must have their names, home addresses and employers listed on public documents."
As Robert in Monterey points out at Calitics, Ron Prentice was a signatory to the blackmail letter sent to Prop 8 opponents last fall telling them they needed to donate an equal amount to the passage of Prop 8 or face "outing" as a business opposed to traditional marriage. Will Prentice cite his own blackmail letter as evidence of the kind of harassment and threats donors are exposed to?
Robert points out that the hypocrisy is quite wall-to-wall on this lawsuit:
Further, in yet another act of hypocrisy, the very people claiming that courts should not overturn "the will of the voters" are suing to undo the outcome of the Political Reform Act of 1974 – which, you guessed it, was passed by voters that year as Proposition 9.
It would be laughable if the attack wasn’t such a dangerous threat to our democracy. If they are successful, the anti-marriage forces will be able to raise FAR more money than they did this year. Companies that rely on same sex marriage supporters for their profits could take that money, give it to the haters, without the public knowing or being able to take their business elsewhere. It could provide their side with a significant financial advantage over ours in a future ballot campaign.
No one should be harassed for their participation in, or donation to, causes before the voters. But people need to understand that their participation may very well have consequences: consumers may choose not to spend their money with companies that donate to restrict civil rights.
A vigorous democracy thrives best in sunlight. This lawsuit would put donations in the dark. That’s a bad idea.
UPDATE: PageOneQ has more.
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Teddy, please review your stance on this matter.
You regard the threatening letters sent as wrong, which any decent person should.
You state that no one should be harassed for their participation in, or donation to, voting issues.
Yet you try to find excuses for the boycotts that caused seemingly decent people to lose their jobs.
Think it through.
I have agree with Teddy here on this matter. In America, we vote not only with our ballots but with our dollars, and anti-LGBT forces have for decades called on boycotts of companies that support marriage equality and workplace equality. Recently Campbell’s soup was the focus of a call in campaign by James Dobson’s AFA which wanted followers to urge to food company to remain ”neutral” on the issue of same sex marriages by not running ads showing two women and their son.
http://www.afa.net/Petitions/I…..asp?id=337
Past boycotts by AFA have included Disney and Proctor & Gamble. Oddly they aren’t saying anything about WalMart’s passage of workplace protection for transgendered employees, prolly because boycotting WalMart is darned hard to do….
If I found out that some nearby business donated to a white power group or David Duke or someone like that, I would not shop there if at all possible.
Why give them my money?
Consumer boycotts are effective and non-violent tools to force social change upon megacorps.
Think back to the Montgomery bus boycott.
How is boycotting a business much different from boycotting people who actively work against civil rights?
Us this a GOP style attempt at equality of funding for political campaigns what ever happened to letting the freemarket decide who should get the most cash?
Or is winning everything? Have they no core principles that they believe in?
I am an average Californian. I WANT to know which companies supported/donated to Prop. 8. I STRONGLY support boycotts and shop accordingly. Why, I haven’t shopped at WalMart since 1968. And that is the truth.
I, frankly, get sick of the excuses. I hear people talking about how they HATE such-and-such legislation, but will they put themselves out one inch to stop it? Oh no! “It is more convenient!” “Its prices are lower!” Fine — then don’t let me hear you whine about their politics.
Face it, folks — if you don’t WORK to pass good legislation, or stop bad legislation, nothing will change. And signing petitions and calling your senators helps, but NOT SHOPPING at companies that help the bad legislation works better.
I am always astounded at the number of corporations that advertise on, say, Rush Limbaugh’s show. Huge corporations — ones everyone uses. Time to put your money where your mouth is.
Boycotts of businesses are not harassment, they are organized consumer actions.
Harassment of individuals is wrong.
Secret donations are wrong.
Think it through.
OT:
” Thoughts On Madoff
Where are BMs tax returns?
Bernie Madoff will not be taken to open trial any any Federal agency. Any BM public trial will risk exposing the Internal Revenue Service as a great scam on the common wage earner, pandering to the corporate rich, the privileged sheleters and trust/foundation schemes.
BM’s scheme had no “profits” to tax. He had no direct income over many years from the estimated $50 Billion, taking only the broker commissions [standard or other amounts?] from trading the funds, by which he lived an opulent and jet-set lifestyle. And the commissions were likely laundered through a BM company, not to him directly.
BM “owned” planes, boats, limosines,mansions, real estate, etc., but most likely [1] indirectly as perks from companies [who pay no tax on “business expenses”] or [2] under his control by being owned by family/friends/associates or [3] owned via offshore and similar dodges immune to the IRS taxation or reporting.
BM WAS TOO BIG FOR THE IRS TO TOUCH.
Of course, the Securities and Exchange Commisssion knew of the scandal and the awesome backfire should they expose it. So they could not honestly investigate without demonstrating their own complicity in creating such financial schemes via deliberate loopholes.
As to the anatomy of loopholes…
Who writes the laws? Who writes the rules? Who decides what gets investigated? and when? and who? Who decides when to enforce the rules? and by whom? To whom do the staffs the SEC owe their jobs?.
The answer is..the rich and powerful leaders of the financial-class and their accomplices. Insiders rule at the SEC, NY Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, etc
BM operated within the deliberate loopholes created by the makers and enablers of finance games.
There is only one remedy. It is a familiar idea long suppressed. It is not a Dept. of Justice or system of justice, judges, lawyers, accountant, trials, juries or police… all those entities have been made purposely confusing and riddled with pay-to-play.
The only remedy I know is mastering and applying the simple idea and definition of justice as fairness. Seek justice. Only justice.
The finance-games crowd are allowed to be “self-regulating” because they write the nonsense laws and rules of their own games so that outsiders are hopelessly confused and thus ineffective. For example, who understood that “Credit Default Swaps” were named such for the exact purpose of escaping regulations governing the insurance industry? CDSs masquerade as insurance…what’s to worry, these bonds are 100% insured by the Great Fiji Island Assurance Society [which my sister-in-law operates in a 1-room shack in Bangladesh].
They want no effective oversight by outsiders…and there in none.
BM is a Finance-game insider. He was untouchable until he was forced to give-up because his schemes collapsed.
His game was exposed years ago. Many top managers in banking and investment firms knew to avoid dealing with him, but they dared not act to “self-regulate” their industry because BM was untouchable. He could continue to play his game. There was no effort to stop his fraud because he was an insider. Any action to stop him would expose the other insiders who practised their own brands of financial flim-flam.
Where did the money go? How could $50 Billion disappear?
In a Ponzi-type game, money is given to a con-man who promises to invest and pay attractive returns or interest to the giver…but secretly the money is not invested and there are no profits from actual investments to pay interest to the giver. The con keeps and uses the money for personal benefit, at the same time using some of it to “pay” interest to the giver, so the giver enjoys success and does not take his money out of the game. BM was “paying” about 16% “interest” to fund managers who recruited the givers, and the fund managers passed on 12% to the givers. BM, himself, meanwhile made full use of the remaining giver-money.
Note that when a giver stays in the game, he continues to get his 12% on the original money…even after 10 or 20 years! And even more if he re-”invests” the 12% payouts. Well, at 16% per year, after only 4 years or so, the con has used up all the original money just as “payouts”. So he must recruit more and more givers to hand over their money for him to “invest” so the money-in stays ahead of the money-out…because if it doesn’t the con cannot payout “interest” and the givers will ask for their money back[redemptions].Alas, after participating about 12 years, a con has already paid out 200% of the giver’s original money, without the con making any profits from the pretended “investing”.
Meanwhile, the givers believe their money is still there working and earning the “interest”. It isn’t there. But the con’s “account books” and “statements” show all the monies are there and invested…in BS’s case, all $50 Billion… which is only the ghost of all accumulated monies given to the con from the very beginning 20 or 30 years ago [plus any re-”invested” payouts; and less any redemptions by givers withdrawing from the game]. Now at end-of-game, the con confesses that maybe $200-300 million actually remains. The con disbursed the money, purely at whim, to subsidise his opulent lifestyle and who knows what else. What price to buy a public official ?
Why did the game end? Why did he confess?
The game ended when, during the recent market losses and drop in value of nearly all kinds of assets and liquidity crisis, some givers who needed more cash decided to withdraw their money from the funds who had given it over to BM to invest. Since BM did not have money to cover the redemptions , even though his “account books” claimed it was all there, he could not return the monies shown in the giver’s statements of account and was exposed as a fraud. Game-over.
All the TAXES paid to the IRS based on any distributed “profits” are probably recoverable bythe givers.
All the taxes never paid on the part of $50 Billion that was spent/consumed by BM are probably lost and, as usual, the taxpayers always make-up for any taxes not collected or forgiven or other forms of “tax breaks”. As long as taxes are levied to meet budget spending, any “tax breaks” must be offset by proportionally higher taxes on those who do pay. [Who writes these laws permitting tax breaks and tax-free Municipal bonds, etc?]
BM can expose the “modern” banking, bond and equities business as flim-flam.
BM can give the lie to the SEC, Treasury and the FedReserve as just an old-boy network of confidence-games; Wizards of Oz behind their curtains of we-know-best-for-you propaganda.
BM will not go to public trial. Plea-bargain, maybe. There is and will be desperate damage-control by the rich and powerful financial gamemakers.
Thank you, BM, for your demonstration of “Behind all big money is big crime”.”
Someone asked a couple of weeks ago who the sponsors of the Limp show were and I never did see an answer. I have never listened to the show and never will so I would really like an answer if someone has blood pressure low enough to listen.
you know I can sympathise with their point of view however hypocritical it is
if I worked for a far right republican I would not like my employer to know where and who I contributed.
he might not be able to fire me for my political affiliation but he sure wouldn’t look to keep me if something came up that he would otherwise protect my position
here’s an example;
in the run up to the war most people were aghast that I stood against the decision and most people thought I was not “patriotic”
to which of course I fought tooth and nail however there are those who might have been fired for that belief.
this is really a tough issue and I have no idea where I stand on it, I need to see all arguments for and against anominimity
I agree and disagree
in a world where as you say, “our actions have consequences” imagine those consequences for people who stood against bush when his approval rating was among the highest of any president
imagine those that served the underground in nazi germany and yes we were dangerously close to those times
I am not so sure secret donations are wrong
There is a list out there — I have seen it. Unfortunately, I forget where I saw it. But if you look, you can find it.
The underground in nazi germany was a secret organization — of course donations to it were secret.
But donations to a public ballot measure, or to a candidate on the ballot? No, I have every right as a citizen to know who those donors are.
If you try and take away someone’s rights that you yourself enjoy you are not a decent person you are a hypocrite. We make job applicants take drug tests with no probable cause to suspect them .
We as a Christian nation are so forgiving the check box on a job application says have you ever committed any felonies? Since Dark people get arrested more we get the shaft.
I notice that Ollie North Mr Sells weapons to Iran then Iran kills a few hundred Marines in Lebanon though is gainfully employed though.
Henry WarCrimes Kissemger is on lots of Corporate boards.
The Antigay forces are angry that they find themselves risking being treated like Dark People.
When one person is denied their rights we all are its just a matter of time. Don’t ask me to start defending people who never said a word about my rights
being taken away.never being above second class.Heck Antigay Mormons welcome to the club fast food, newspaper deliver, general labor they never really check your job status as felons I’m sure they won’t check whether you are an antigay funder!
But hurry all the open spots are being taken I think I saw Alberto Gonzales in line as I drove by the local food bank.
Diary
It seems only left-thinking people are afraid of losing their jobs. Right-wingers routinely scream and yap at the workplace, and never get fired. The same goes for schools. When my kids were in elementary school, the right-wing parents were ALWAYS screaming about something (library books, PE rules, everything). I always tried to counter them, and lost at least 2 jobs because of it. But if you aren’t brave, you won’t get anything decent. At the time, circa 1997 – 2001, no one was brave enough, at work, to join me. Like you, they feared losing their jobs. But you know what? No pain, no gain. And as a single mother, with 3 minor children, few were more financially needy than me. Yet I did it. You must.
yes, we must hide everything from each other so there are no consequences for anything. let’s go fer total secrecy like the thugs. that way we can beat them at their own game.
Well we were/are spied on. I’m sure we are all on lists. If there had been another terror attack how many of us would have been picked up.
do what is right and never be intimidated by a boss or neighborhood or gov’t. money is almost nothing compared to self respect.
have a fire arm and be prepared to use it. don’t be a lamb. well, at least that is my way. of course, i am a black sheep.
Oh, well, I think right-wing people are also terrified of losing their jobs, that is what drives many of them to adopt the views of their masters, betters, and employers: they are then seen as part of that ownership class, they believe, and will be thought well of in a downturn that might require belt-tightening on the part of the owner.
Perhaps it is rather like using your name on a blog.
that’s a good point however democrats can lose their job over donations like this just as republicans can
‘
this is not black and white for me, you make good points but as you say, your actions have consequences, however legal donations will have illegal consequences
*what to do*
off to bed, food for my thought tonight to be sure, thanx for the post teddy
If we taxed hedgefunds that would provide some proof of their earnings and make the system more transparent. Right now nobody lends because nobody trusts each others numbers.
errr…that should have been response to teddy but I was hovering over your very snarkish post so I linked to you instead
have a good night all
I’m not so worried now that Obama won:)
the answer is the government should do the lending till the lendning industries realise they are not making money that they should be making
when the government lends money there is far less overhead and the borrower is far better off
it is now O minus ten days
me either. i just hope we can learn to trust the gov’t again like we used to.
did you know o’bama is an irishman?
tiz true
computer off, c all manana
Dr. Murphy is upstairs at the Mothership!
PEBO Wants AEI Libertarian Opposed to Product Bans Deciding OMB’s Health and Enviro Rules
I guess it depends on where you live. In San Francisco, they probably ARE somewhat afraid. But in Sacramento, I can assure you they aren’t. And I can only imagine what they are like in Fresno or Bakersfield.
Most of the right wing people left in sf live in Pacific Heights and they don’t have to worry about their jobs. You know, people like DiFi.
The businesses were boycotted to target individuals. These individuals did not act against anyone’s civil rights. These individuals were known to be sympathetic and generous to gay people. They both give small amounts of money( I think $100) in support of Prop. 8.
There is no evidence that they voted for it.
You darn well know that it was individuals being targeted. The businesses were being squeezed to get rid of single employees.
If you are speaking of the Sacramento theatre music director who quit his job, his donation was $1,000. Hardly an inconsequential amount for someone who works every day with LGBT people, in an LGBT-intensive work field. The El Coyote manager’s donation was $100.
And of course no one knows how they voted. That’s not the point. We have secret ballots in America.
IN the case of El Coyote, Marjie was a manager; her mother or aunt is the owner. Very different from “an employee.”
That would probably be funny to listen to. Typed it, it was incoherent.
Why do you think that we have secret ballots, Teddy?
Did the boycott end after Marjie had to leave?
She didn’t “have to leave.”
She resigned.
You have a fundamental misapprehension of the difference between free speech, free association, and consumer choice.
Did the boycott end after she didn’t have to leave but suddenly decided to do so?