A late Independent Expenditure Report, Form 496, filed on May 6, 2014, shows that the Opportunity PAC, “A coalition of teachers, health care givers, faculty members, school employees, and public and private employee associations,” has lined up more than $500,000 in opposition to Democratic Candidate Bill Dodd, a Napa County Supervisor.
Bill Dodd, with a substantial war chest of his own and a smaller $50,000 independent expenditure campaign funded by the insurance industry on his behalf, is presumed to be the frontrunner in a five-person race to replace incumbent Assemblymember Mariko Yamada, before the wave of mailers and potential television ads bombard voters over the next weeks.
The filing shows the COPE contributing $50,000, CNA $25,000, Service Employees $100,000, SFA $50,000, CSEA $100,000, SEIU Local 1000 $100,000, and UFCW another $100,000.
In 2008, West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon was a presumed frontrunner, but a last month blitz of mailers and precinct walkers pushed Mariko Yamada over the top in relatively stunning fashion. Will the late blitz have a similar impact here in a race where Dan Wolk was a distant third in fundraising, behind Supervisor Dodd and Davis Mayor Joe Krovoza?
On the other hand, the first mailer hit Davis voters’ mailboxes on Wednesday.
It indicates “Being a politician is hard work – just ask Bill Dodd.” The ad features of pictorial representation of a Napa Valley Register article that reads, “Supervisors Get $1000 Raise.” The attack line is “Bill Dodd pushed a tax increase… then gave himself a raise.”
In the blurb it states, “A year after leading the charge to raise taxes, Supervisor Dodd – a Napa County millionaire – voted to raise his pay to $85,370. Dodd was also getting a stipend of $7,400 when he voted himself more than $440 in monthly car and phone allowances, and a health benefits and retirement package.”
FACT CHECK: The ad represents a heavy distortion from the facts. In December, the Board of Supervisors did approve a 1.4 percent increase in salary, an additional $1000. It represented the first pay increase in six years.
But importantly, the Napa paper reported, “The pay raises are mandated by Napa County ordinance, which ties the supervisors’ salaries to a percentage of Napa County Superior Court judges’ pay. Superior Court judges statewide are getting the same 1.4 percent pay raise, increasing their salaries from $178,789 annually to $181,292.”
The article continues, “Napa County supervisors by law receive 47.09 percent of the Superior Court judges’ salaries. The 1.4 percent pay bump will take their annual salaries from $84,204 to about $85,370. The county received notice Dec. 2 of the judicial pay raises, which are also retroactive to July 1, according to a county staff report.”
“Supervisors and judges haven’t seen a pay raise since 2007 because of the state government’s budget problems, which resulted in a freeze of judicial salaries. The state provides the majority of the funding for California’s 58 trial courts,” the Napa paper reports.
“That’s a long time ago,” Supervisor Bill Dodd told the paper. “That’s our first raise in salary since 2007. Hopefully the public will not be disappointed in this.”
The paper also notes, “Their salaries are still the smallest among their fellow North Bay supervisors. Solano County gives its supervisors about $94,000 in base pay, while Marin County offers about $97,000, although that’s slated to increase to $107,000 next year. Sonoma County pays its supervisors $134,000 annually.”
The Vanguard ran into Bill Dodd on Wednesday and he noted that, while the Board of Supervisors was required to vote to approve the pay increase, because of the ordinance, even if they had voted against it, the pay increase would have taken effect.
Yolo County has a similar ordinance tying pay increases to judge’s salaries as it takes the unsavory nature away from politicians having to vote to increase their own salaries.
Last September, the Davis City Council voted 4-1 to increase their stipend from $669.42 per month to $1138. Mayor Krovoza voted with the majority while Dan Wolk dissented.
He argued the $30,000 or so saved by keeping salaries at the current level would be better spent elsewhere and it sends the wrong message to city employees.
He said during the meeting, “I think that in this financial period where we’re cutting, and every dollar counts, I think raising council compensation is not a good idea, not only financially but also for the optics of it.”
Meanwhile Joe Krovoza, also a candidate for Assembly voted in favor of the stipend increase. The increase does not take effect until the new councilmembers are sworn in and Joe Krovoza at the time that he cast the vote, had already announced his run for Assembly and that he would not run again.
Overall, we find the ad misleading given the lack of choice that the supervisors had in the pay increase. Our experience, however, is that the first salvo is not necessarily the most effective.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Well written, love the ‘fact checking’.
I notice the flyer also calls Dodd a “Napa County Millionaire”. I wonder if he really is a “Millionaire” or if they are just calling him a “Millionaire” (as bad as calling him a “Republican” for many in the Democrats voter base) because his home near (but not on) the Silverado South course is worth about a million dollars. Not many guys in their 50’s (with 5 kids) own their homes free and clear I know people that live near Bill that would need to write a check to sell their “Million Dollar Homes” (that they bought for $1.2 million ~8 years ago).
“Napa County Millionaire” says the Davis firefighters about to retire at age 50 with several million dollars worth of pay and benefits complements of the politicians they fund.
Good reporting.
Thank God for Citizens United.
not following what an independent expenditure has to do with citizens united.
Corporate money combating union money for political influence. Private campaign contributions from a union PAC are no more acceptable than are corporate PAC donations. But if we allow one it is good to have both to offset the corruptive force.
Best answer: don’t allow either. I hope everyone will support the efforts to overturn Citizens United. It will, unfortunately, take a constitutional amendment.
I recently received a very fancy, big, glossy mailing on behalf of Dodd featuring his more liberal views and prominently featuring his endorsement by Mike Thompson. Clearly he’s trying to attract away some of the Democrats in the district outside of Davis.
Don wrote:
> Best answer: don’t allow either. I hope everyone will
> support the efforts to overturn Citizens United.
I don’t want to restrict individuals, unions or corporations right to free speech. My “best answer” it to force any candidate to “recuse themselves” from any vote that impacts an individual, union or corporation that gave them money (or funded a PAC that supported them).
If the grape growers really just want to “support” Dodd they can keep giving him money knowing he can not vote on any laws that are related to the grape industry and if the unions just wan to “support” Wolk they can still do it, but he won’t be able to vote on any bills that impact union pay and benefits.
This is a simple way to stop the rich, rich corporations, and rich unions from taking over our state and screwing the “regular people” that don’t have the money to bribe/make perfectly legal campaign contributions to politicians so we get tax breaks, no bid contracts or multi-million dollar pensions.
I don’t believe corporations or unions have a right to free speech. They aren’t people. But evidently we have to amend the constitution, because the current Supreme Court thinks they are.
Individuals can do whatever they want. We’ll never stop billionaires from trying to buy their way into office. Their track record isn’t very good at it, though. Partly that’s because it’s so transparent, while the corporations and unions can hide behind these fake and unidentified entities. I don’t believe it should be legal to send out a political mailing or run an ad without identifying who has sponsored it. By name, in detail, in large print. If one of our assembly candidates is benefiting from negative campaign pieces against another one, and that isn’t identified — well, shame on him.
Don wrote:
> I don’t believe corporations or unions have
> a right to free speech. They aren’t people.
Do you really think that the government should be able to tell a union and a corporation (say a guy that owns three garden centers who decided that a corporate structure was better than a LLC) what they can and can not say?
> We’ll never stop billionaires from trying to
> buy their way into office.
The BIG problem is not buying their way “in” to office, but “buying” the office (as far as I know George Soros or the Koch Brothers have never run for office).
> I don’t believe it should be legal to send out
> a political mailing or run an ad without
> identifying who has sponsored it.
It is already against the law to send out a political mailer without identifying who paid for it. You just need to use Google to find out that “Restore our Future” is a GOP PAC, “Independence USA” is a Dem. PAC and “American’s for a Better Tomorrow Tomorrow” is Stephen Colbert’s PAC…
“Do you really think that the government should be able to tell a union and a corporation (say a guy that owns three garden centers who decided that a corporate structure was better than a LLC) what they can and can not say?”
they aren’t. they’re telling a union and a corporation guy tnat they can’t spend unlimited amounts of money to say whatever it is that they say. huge difference.
I don’t believe corporations or unions have a right to free speech. They aren’t people. But evidently we have to amend the constitution, because the current Supreme Court thinks they are.
Corporations are separately taxed entities. They deserve a right to represent themselves and their financial interests in campaigning for causes and candidates that benefit them. Ever heard of taxation without representation? Unions are not taxed entities, and therefore should not be allowed to contribute to political causes and campaigns… especially those that benefit them directly.
Public unions should be completely bared from any political activity since they and their members have a complete and obvious conflict of interest.
And all individual employees and unions members, because they are taxed entities, should be allowed to contribute to political causes and campaigns. I support unions being able to encourage member voting just as I support corporations encouraging employee voting… but without any threat of consequences from the union or corporation. For example, a corporation can tell employees they might or will have their hours cut as a result of Obamacare, but not that they might or will have their hours cut if they vote for Obama.
But all this hand wringing about money spent on politics misses the larger point about how we are funding political campaigns in general, and what type of politicians we are electing. It also says something about electorate that they will buy some junk advertising instead of understanding the issues and the candidates.
The real problem is us… the voter. We elect a candidate that makes us feel good and that provides us the best opportunity to funnel money our way.
We shift more and more of the private economy to the hands of politicians and then we cry about money influencing politics and that so many shysters and crooks are hanging around.
Surprise, surprise.
If we want to see less crony capitalism and less money-for-politics, we should just demand a much smaller government.
nothing here is different than it would have been ten years ago.
DP
I agree. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now.
Both the funding, and the use of incorrect and inflammatory hit pieces.
love it. here come the unions and the best thing that they could find to attack dodd with is a lie. dodd didn’t have any choice, they made it up. hope they have better stuff than that. can’t wait to see dodd’s response.
Wolk for Assembly’s super sized mailer arrived this morning.
It’s from the same PAC, “Opportunity”, as yesterday’s hit piece against Dodd.
I just got a hit piece in the mail attacking Bill Dodd. It’s from the unions backing Dan Wolk.
…. Related thought: I wonder why Charlie Schaupp is not raising money for his primary campaign? He stands no chance to win in November, but I think he should be the favorite in the primary. Yet by not raising any money, he may be ceding a lot of his center-right territory to Bill Dodd. And that may not really help Dodd, if it means that Wolk or Krovoza sneaks up and takes second place. Dodd should be praying that he and Schaupp finish 1-2.
because most of the money that would normally go to republicans is going to dodd.
That explains the big givers side of the equation. But I would think that Schaupp, if was actually trying to raise money–presuming he knows how to raise money–could get $100 contributions here and there from individuals who agree with him on issues like guns and abortion, or feel like he is one of theirs, such as veterans or anyone close to the the USMC or other small, independent farmers, etc. Essentially, if you look at Joe Krovoza’s contributors, most of them are giving him small amounts and they are not the types who are looking for money back. They share his environmentalist point of view or for some other reason feel Joe is one of theirs. Maybe it is just the case that Schaupp has a list of positions he believes in, but has no idea how to raise money. Or maybe he thinks it does not matter.