Ignorance Not Bliss In Palm Springs

After a some prodding by me and others, the Desert Sun Editorial Board finally got around  to addressing big money donations in Palm Springs. While this milquetoast response was expected, it was lax in both in tone and content.

The editorial mentions failed gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman and her huge financial lead over and subsequent loss to Jerry Brown. It glosses over the fact that most of that money was her own and not given to her by a single big bucks donor. Obviously a self-funded candidate will have an advantage in a medium sized town like Palm Springs. Also, without getting too wonky, much of her money was spent early just to get name recognition, something Brown had in spades.

Next the Desert Sun brings up the fact that limiting individual campaign contributions will not limit outside money or IEs (Independent Expenditure Committees) from hiding sources of donations in future campaigns. In theory true. In reality, balderdash. If an IE were to come in Palm Springs, any self-respecting journalist would jump at the opportunity to expose who was behind it. Why just in the last election, a group calling itself the Committee To Clean Up Palm Springs was formed and purchased ads. Now what was the name of the newspaper who immediately investigated and exposed the principals involved? I believe it was The Desert Sun. Perhaps the Editorial Board should peruse their own product more diligently.

The elephant in the room is the $150,000 Harold Matzner directly gave to failed mayoral candidate Ginny Foat. That is 55 times the amount he will be allowed to directly give to either Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio in 2016.

What the Desert Sun is basically saying is let's have the status quo. In fact  it even tries to be clever and say limiting individual contributions is "A solution in search of a problem.". See above paragraph if you don't perceive a problem.

Without getting into the esoteric debates over IEs and public financing, I propose Palm Springs limit individual contributions to match the $2,700 federal limit and group contributions to $5,000. Of course self funded campaigns would be exempt. There is no need for some proposed Ethics Committee to take this up. It should be done ASAP.

Steve Kelly can be reached at skelly@rrbroadcasting.com