Never has politician who ran one way behaved so opposite as what we’re seeing here in California in the case of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who now seems destined to be either a one-term governor or a pol who wins re-election by a teenie-weenie muscle:
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is benefiting from millions of dollars raised by a network of tax-exempt groups without revealing that the money comes from major corporations with business before his office.
The groups are run by Schwarzenegger’s closest political allies, who also represent some of California’s biggest interest groups. Unlike the governor’s many campaign funds, the nonprofits are not required to disclose their contributors and can accept unlimited amounts.
Those of us (and yours truly was one of them) who wanted to dump Grey Davis and voted for Schwarzenegger believed his pitch that he would be a different kind of Governor who didn’t want to do things in the traditional way. In a sense, you can say that’s exactly what he did….but not in the way we had in mind..
A steady stream of negative news stories now suggest that the campaign was grounded in comments that later turned out to be hypocritical and that various news stories raise not only eyebrows but whole foreheads as the word “corruption” is starting to come to mind. Read more from the LA Times piece:
One group controlled by a powerful corporate consultant pays the $6,000-a-month rent on a Sacramento hotel suite used by the governor, who is a multimillionaire. Others have funded media events and political rallies featuring Schwarzenegger and helped pay for his foreign travel. So far, five tax-exempt groups aiding Schwarzenegger have collected $3 million.
Other elected officials also raise money through nonprofit groups. But Schwarzenegger campaigned on creating an open government answerable to the public. His use of the nonprofit groups has the opposite effect, ethics watchdogs said.
State and federal laws allow groups performing a broadly defined “public benefit” to operate tax exempt. But the lack of disclosure requirements means potential conflicts of interests between the governor and his contributors remain hidden, allowing powerful donors to curry favor with Schwarzenegger behind the scenes, they said.
“This is an end run around the campaign finance laws,” said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. “It does away with the contribution limits and it avoids disclosure, and it’s a way for the special interests who are supporting him to buy access and buy influence.”
Rob Stutzman, the governor’s communications director, said Schwarzenegger has asked the nonprofits directly helping him — such as the foundation paying his rent — to disclose their donors. In any case, he said the governor pays little attention to who donates to the nonprofits.
That won’t be a good enough explanation for the independents and moderates who supported him who didn’t want to keep the existing incompetent and fund-raising-crazy Democratic administration in power.
In the case of Arnold, as in the case of Bush, independent voters’ steady defection is shoving his poll numbers south and doesn’t bode well for him — or his party. Each month there seems to be a new revelation about Schwarzenegger and money.
You don’t hear much anymore about changing the constitution so foreign born American residents can run for President, do you?
We suspect you won’t…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.