“Half-Unz”

As most of you are aware, Prop. 25, my sweeping campaign finance reform measure on California’s March ballot was defeated by a well-funded campaign led by Gov. Gray Davis and California’s Democratic Party.

Now, ironically enough, California’s Democratic leaders have placed their own campaign finance reform measure on the November ballot, even though it generally includes exactly those elements and limits which had been their excuse for opposing my own.

Their real motivation is easy to determine. They are fearful of the courts reviving Prop. 208, a very restrictive reform measure overwhelmingly passed by the voters in 1996, and have placed a much looser measure on the ballot, intended to invalidate Prop. 208.

Although some reform is usually better than none, I do wish the Democrats had not removed nearly all of my most innovative and important Internet disclosure provisions from Prop. 25, before they relabeled the measure as their own and placed it on the ballot.

Here are a few recent accounts of these political manueverings.

  • “Half-Unz” by Jill Stewart
    New Times Los Angeles, Thursday, July 13, 2000

  • “Campaign Finance Bill Zips Through Panel”
    Los Angeles Times, Friday, June 30, 2000

  • “Davis, shielded by loophole, gets behind campaign finance reform”
    Associated Press, Sunday, July 9, 2000
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