There is a major political battle going on for the State Senate seat of termed-out Senator Fran Pavley. Pavley and Congressman Ted Lieu are backing environmental lawyer and Malibu native Henry Stern. A number of other Democrat pols, including Supervisor Sheila Kuehl and retired supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, are backing Janice Kamenir-Reznik. Our mailboxes are rapidly filling up with multiple mailers of smiling candidates, all looking leaderly and energetic.
Recently I received a full color, eight-page, glossy mailer for Kamenir-Reznik. When you consider there are over 200,000 registered Democrats in this senatorial district and another 100,000 independents, that is one heck of an expensive direct mail piece, so I turned it over to see who was paying for it. Imagine my surprise that it was paid for by the California Dental Association Independent Political Action Committee (PAC). In fact, all of the mailing pieces I’ve received for Kamenir-Reznik bear the stamp of the California Dental Association PAC.
First let me confess: I’m a fan of Stern and I think he would make an outstanding state senator and a worthy successor to Pavley, who is the gold standard for effective environmentalist legislators — in California and also nationwide. I ran into Stern at a recent event and asked him why the California dentists were so angry at him they were willing to spend thousands — my guess, easily $100,000 — for a mailers to make sure he didn’t get elected. “Henry,” I said, “what did you do? Did you forget to floss after being cautioned? Did you fail to give the required 24-hour notice before canceling your appointment? Whatever did you do?” That’s when I got the back-story, which I then ran by some of my own sources.
Although the title “California Dental Association Independent Expenditure PAC” sounds innocuous enough, in the past it has partnered up in some races and causes with Chevron and others that that would seem to have little to do with dentistry. There is currently a PAC called “Keeping Californians Working” in which the Dental PAC contributed $500,000, Chevron put in $1,000,000, the Apartment Owners Association $250,000 and the Personal Insurance Federation, $125,000. They have spent $284,000 to date, but none yet on our Senate race. However, the California Dental PAC has contributed $137,000 in support of Kamenir-Reznik from another committee that has not received Chevron funding. It’s not always easy to follow the money in Sacramento, primarily because the givers want to make it difficult to follow the money and often they do business on a handshake to cover their tracks. The only rational conclusion I could come to was that the Dental PAC was acting as Chevron’s “beard,” so Chevron didn’t have to say, “We don’t want any #%&*%! environmental senators! We’ve had enough problems with the old one and what we want is a nice agreeable Senator who is not going to give us any problems!” and that certainly is not Stern.
What I know of Kamenir-Reznik is that she is a lawyer, a competent individual, and she and her husband have or had the law firm of Reznik and Reznik that has represented developers and individually both are major political players in the Democratic party firmament. They have raised a lot of money for a lot of politicos, and if there is one thing that politicians need in California, with some of the most expensive media markets in the country, it is lots and lots of money. All this is, of course, perfectly legitimate, but you have to ask yourself if that is the kind of Senator you want, because people who raise money for politicos are not in a position to make waves.
How I believe it actually plays out is Chevron, along with a number of other oil companies, belong to the Western States Petroleum Association, which is part of their lobbying arm, and they are enormously effective lobbyists. How do I know that? That’s simple. California is the bluest of blue states, and yet we don’t have an oil severance tax. Texas, reddest of the red states, has an oil severance tax. Other states, large and small, like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and West Virginia, all have an oil severance tax, but not us. We are not talking about small change either. After Texas and North Dakota we, California, are the third-largest oil producer in the country. Now I have to believe that the bean counters at Chevron think it’s cheaper to get money to friendly politicians, those in office and those who wanna be, then it is to go along with an oil severance tax. There have been several shots over the years at an oil severance tax, which in the legislature never made it to the floor for a vote, or at ballot propositions, which have been roundly defeated at the polls, after major spending by the oil industry.
An oil severance tax would seem to make sense, in that oil is turned into gas, which goes into our cars which ride on roads and cross bridges that are desperately in need of repair. I’m sure that Chevron would agree that our roads and bridges need some major repairs; they just don’t particularly want to pay for it themselves. I suspect that they prefer that we all pay for it; therefore, it becomes so much easier and cost effective to put their money behind people that they can depend on not to cause them problems.
So next time you get a mailer, look for the little box with the small print which tells you who paid for it. That tells you who the real players are in the game.