Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Door Opened for Perata to Buy Oakland Mayor's Race
Politics / People / Law Enforcement & Crime Robert Gammon — Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 10:42 AM
A new legal opinion from the Oakland City Attorney’s Office will effectively allow ex-state Senator Don Perata to exceed the city’s spending cap in the mayor’s race and not have to worry about potential consequences until well after the election. The opinion, coupled with the city’s cumbersome process for investigating campaign finance violations, also likely means that voters won’t know for sure whether Perata has broken any laws until after they’ve cast their ballots.
Rebecca Kaplan, one of Perata’s main competitors in the mayor’s race, said the City Attorney’s opinion effectively means that Oakland “has no campaign finance law.” The opinion was prompted by questions Kaplan raised about spending by Perata and a Sacramento-group with close ties to him. That group, Coalition for a Safer California, recently declared that it had exceeded Oakland’s spending threshold for independent committees, thereby lifting all expenditure caps in the mayor’s race. And Perata appears to now have exceeded the city’s spending limit of $379,000 for mayoral candidates with a wave of recent cable TV ads.
Kaplan noted that Perata and the Coalition for a Safer California have effectively turned Oakland’s campaign finance law on its head. The law was written in the 1990s to allow a candidate to exceed the expenditure cap if some group spends large sums attacking that candidate. But a loophole in the law also lets Perata benefit from a group that supports him — Coalition for a Safer California — by allowing him to overspend if it overspends, too. Coalition for a Safer California is run by Perata’s longtime friend, Paul Kinney, and is primarily funded by Perata’s primary employer, the state prison guard’s union, thereby also raising questions as to whether Perata has been coordinating with the group in violation of state and local laws. Kaplan called Perata and the group’s actions a “new low” in Oakland politics. She noted that Perata had promised early on to run an ethical campaign.
Kaplan and Councilwoman Jean Quan, who is also running for mayor, had contended that the Oakland Public Ethics Commission should decide whether caps have been lifted in the mayor’s race. But the new legal opinion, written by Supervising Deputy City Attorney Mark Morodomi and signed by City Attorney John Russo, said that there is no provision in Oakland law for the Ethics Commission to make such a finding. Instead, the opinion essentially says that Kaplan, Quan, or someone else will have to file a complaint against Perata with the Ethics Commission before it can be determined whether he has gone over the $379,000 cap in violation of city law.
However, such a complaint likely can’t be made until at least next week, when candidates file their campaign finance statements. And Dan Purnell, the Ethics Commission’s executive director, indicated in an interview that it could take weeks, perhaps months, to fully investigate such complaints. The investigation would have to include an examination of whether the Perata-linked group actually exceeded the city’s cap or not. In other words, there likely won’t be any determination before the election as to whether Perata has broken the law. Dan Siegel, Quan’s campaign attorney, described the city’s bureaucratic process for investigating campaign lawbreaking as “glacial, on a good day.”
The only hope that Kaplan and Quan may have of stopping Perata from effectively buying the election is the Oakland City Council. Tomorrow, the council’s Rules Committee will take up a request by Kaplan and Quan to clarify Oakland law so that a candidate can’t just start overspending if some group says it has overspent, too. The councilwomen want the Ethics Commission to make a determination first before caps are lifted in a race. Kaplan also said that she plans to introduce legislation to fix Oakland’s campaign finance law.
Comments (5)
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Read what the San Francisco Chronicle, a REAL newspaper, has to say about Don Perata: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?…
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INTERESTING COMMENT found on 'craigslist' in 'politics' section... it says;
Don Perata...Seems too 'big' for his britches and certainly too 'big' to answer questions or talk in public forums...or show up for that matter. Apparently he thinks his 'name', his 'connections' or his 'money' are all he needs. He apparently DOESN'T think he needs 'us'...that's for sure! How can a guy be so absolutely sure of his 'shoe in' that he doesn't need to talk to us to tell us what he thinks. It's the Cosa Nostra of the East Bay. In a recent public forum of mayoral candidates at St. Paschals church in the oakland hills, Perata didn't even bother to show up...BUT(!)...guess who belatedly did! EIGHT (8!!)+ on-duty police!...who immediately left when they saw Don Perata wasn't there! Perata (aka: "The Don") who supports whatever is necessary to have over-paid police get what they want is, in turn, supported by...overpaid police!...who, on COMPANY TIME (it was evening...so, probably OVERTIME!) show up to support Perata...& leave when he's no where in sight. We NEED EIGHT (overtime?) cops at a peaceful event in a good neighborhood when kids are hanging around liquor stores on High street or shooting each other?
...At a very well attended & successful forum (BIG TIME overflow event) at the Kaiser Auditorium he sat back away from the table most of the night with his arms folded (The 'Cosa Nostra' of the East Bay lives!..and you know who supports it!) and barely made effort to answer questions or engage in the event. Here is his chance to show us he's the 'peoples' candidate and he arrogantly virtually refuses to engage. For Oakland 'Quan' & the 'Don' are familiar names which will give us VERY familiar results. Choose your Mayor from one of the bright stars who showed up & enthusiastically engaged & showed intelligent interaction rather than blase rehashed bullshit.
@totoand wamwam and lawngun(aka David Mix?)
Don't shoot the messenger.
Let's not forget that when Don Perata was going around twisting everybody's arm at city hall in order to try and get them to stop Ranked Choice Voting, Russo's response was to write and issue a VERY strong opinion that was EXACTLY the OPPOSITE of what Don Perata wanted.
Russo just issued an opinion on what the language in the law means. Find someone with a strong argument that the language means something else, and then you have a reason to quibble.
The law is poorly written, which is no surprise in Oakland, and it needs to be updated. If Perata wins, it should be easy to update it, and even if he doesn't win, we need to fix the law. But this has everything to do with Perata and nothing to do with Russo.
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Not a surprise. John Russo was pressing to raise campaign spending limits once instant runoff voting became a reality. Who would that have benefited? Perata, of course. If Perata is elected, with his close ties to certain councilmembers, the City Attorney and with a democratic City Auditor with higher political aspirations, the City of Oakland is due a the "Perfect Storm". The results will not be pretty and the residents of Oakland will be going down, perhaps for the last time.
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