Put Up Or Shut Up

Fifth District Supervisor Dan Hamburg is a big think guy, as are many of his constituents. The lib-dominated Fifth spends a lot of time on that electronic cornucopia of misinformation, the Internet, hence a whole lot of excited chatter on local list serves about Building 7 and comparably implausible and thoroughly discredited conspiracies with, of course, an occasional timeout for a toke on the old bazooka or a boogie.

The Supervisor had spent considerable time researching corporate personhood, that huge electoral swindle that says corporations are people with all the rights thereunto. Hamburg even went to the trouble of digging into previous actions taken by the Board involving other national issues — the implementation of Patriot Act back in 2003 on a 4-1 Yes vote with Supervisor Delbar dissenting; a resolution to immediately remove National Guard troops from Iraq in 2006 (3-2 Yes); and another one in 2006 to “end military action in Iraq” (also 3-2 Yes). Hamburg also cited resolutions against corporate personhood in Point Arena and Fort Bragg, adding that the Point Arena resolution “was even commented on by Michael Moore at the Arena Theater.”

(Gosh, Dan, did you get an autograph?)

Hamburg spoke at length about the origins of corporate personhood, citing Supreme Court rulings going back to a ruling in 1886, his presentation sounding like it was cribbed from Wikipedia. But the supervisor had done his homework. He even found a pointed quote on the subject by no less a figure than Thomas Jefferson in 1816: “I hope we shall take warning from the example [of England] and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws our country.”

Jefferson also said that same year, “Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

Hamburg’s argument against corporate personhood persuaded his already persuaded Board colleagues who, like most Americans, regard it as one more crime against most of us by the One Percent.

Although it didn’t need it, Hamburg's case was buttressed by several speakers who had participated in the signature gathering effort in recent months. They'd gathered more than 5700 Mendo signatures against corporate personhood. Lead signature gatherer Robin Sunbeam enthusiastically described Hamburg’s presentation as “an excellent summary.”

And it certainly was. Hamburg even avoided the oxymoronic phrase invoked by some local liberals calling for large businesses to be “good corporate citizens.”

The only cold water thrown on Hamburg's argument was a less than enthusiastic response from Supervisor John Pinches, Mendo’s least party-line Supervisor.

“I get a kick out of this national group, Move To Amend,” said a smiling Pinches. “It says the proposed 28th Amendment, Section 1 is that corporations are not persons. Section 2, money is not speech and can be regulated. But then you look down here in Section 3. ‘Nothing contained in this amendment shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.’ So..... what this is saying is we are still going to leave in place the First Amendment and so this really means nothing. What you're really talking about here is.... freedom of speech! “

Pinches went on noting the ironies and contradictions of the resolution until McCowen said, “But it's clarifying that a corporation does not have the same constitutional rights to freedom of speech, etc. as an individual.”

Pinches: “So the guy ordering the millions of dollars in TV and radio and newspaper ads can't do it in the corporation's name. They have to do it in the name of a member of the corporation. That's what you're saying. So my point is, is there any real difference? I don't think so.”

Hamburg, leaning heavily on his extensive preparation, had a better, if somewhat longer, answer: “I have to respond to Supervisor Pinches just for a second. What the Supreme Court did in the Citizens United question as I understand it is they took a very narrow issue of whether this nonprofit corporation which created ‘Hillary The Movie’ could put this ad out in a particular window of time, I think it was within 60 days or maybe 30 days of the election itself. And through the machinations of Chief Justice Roberts they turned this into a decision that gutted all of the regulations around campaign finance. So I think Supervisor Pinches brought up an interesting issue: even if you get all corporate money out, what you do with Sheldon Adelson? Sheldon Adelson is the guy who famously put $100 million to back Newt Gingrich running in a Republican primary. There's many others. There is the Koch Brothers who put hundreds of millions of dollars into saving Scott Walker's governorship in Wisconsin. [And who own the GP mill site in Fort Bragg.] The point is that the Supreme Court in going after this Citizen United, this little nonprofit group, ended up gutting all the campaign-finance laws and especially the McCain-Feingold which did put specific limits on the Sheldon Adelsons and the gutting of McCain-Feingold and this new Citizens United decision has led to the birth of these Superpacs which are totally unaccounted for money that is coming in the tens of millions of dollars into our political system, and as anybody who watches the news knows we are looking at the first billion-dollar presidential election campaign in the history of this country!”

Rich libs are throwing almost as much money at corporate toady Obama as the Koch brothers are throwing at a variety of neo-fascist causes, including Romney. Obama bailed out the banks, not the people the banks threw out onto the street. But watch the 5th District vote for Obama big time, again.

Hamburg continued.

“If we don't do something about it, this is just going to be the start! And not only does it affect contributions within this country but now foreign governments are completely unlimited in the amount of money they can put in to our elections! The government of China can elect a US senator under this current regime! I don't want to get on my soapbox here but we have to do something about it and I am just so happy that these folks represented by Margaret [a local signature gatherer] and the other people here today went to all the work and trouble and didn't just say, 'Oh it's too much trouble in getting signatures and so forth. Let's just find three board members who will support this and we will get it done. Instead, they went through the labor of going to the shopping centers and the grocery stores and confronting people on the street. It's amazing when you do signature gathering how many people have never even heard of Citizens United or corporate personhood! And you explain it one person at a time and you find people that agree and that's how you do a movement and that's how you change things politically! With that Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move the resolution.”

Then the meeting got interesting.

McCowen: “For clarification, are we deleting and waiving the associated fee?”

There’s a $1600 fee to put a measure on the November ballot.

Hamburg: “I don't think we need to do that. I think we would have to impose the fee.”

McCowen: “I'm hearing from the election official that—”

Hamburg: “We pay it anyway, so why does it matter?”

McCowen: “I'm hearing that we are moving to put the item on the ballot, so we would have to pay the $1600 fee. If we waive the fee the effect would be to have it come out of the Election official's budget.”

County Clerk Assessor Recorder Susan Ranochak: “I don't believe there's a distinction there. It's general fund. It's general fund. I mean your budget is general fund. Mine is general fund. I think that Kyle [Knopp, Deputy CEO] can address this question better.”

McCowen: “Wouldn't you rather have it come out of our budget than yours?”

Ranochak: “Well, of course I would!”

McCowen: “So to make clear that that's what's happening — we would, I think, delete the request to waive the fee.”

Hamburg: “Yes. I said that at the very beginning.”

McCowen: “But that wasn't clear to me. So then you would need to amend the recommended action.”

Pinches: “Mr. Chairman.”

Hamburg: “I thought we could simply move the resolution which County Counsel brought to us this morning.”

Pinches: “Mr. Chairman, there is another option. If I may.”

McCowen: “Supervisor Pinches.”

Pinches: “There is another option.”

McCowen: “Well, let's stay to the motion at hand please.”

Pinches: “Well, I just want to—”

McCowen: “I'm just trying to clarify who pays and who doesn't.”

Pinches: “…the motion…”

Hamburg: “It doesn't even have a second.”

Pinches: “I thought when Sue [Ranochak, Clerk-Assessor-Recorder] said the Board of Supervisors would pay the fee, I thought that meant that the Board of Supervisors, not the Board of Supervisors’ budget. The Board of Supervisors’ budget is taxpayers dollars. The Board of Supervisors is the five of us. If we split the cost equally for each of us, that's about $320 each and you can just take it out of our paycheck.”

A woman in the audience screeched in delight!

Pinches: “Would anybody support that?”

McCowen: “I would support that.”

Pinches: “I'll support that.”

The screecher was transported. She squealed in agreement: “Yes!”

But not Supervisor Kendall Smith, the infamous travel chiseler, the only Supervisor not to take a pay cut while voting to impose a 10% cut (or more) on every other County employee. She looked like she'd just stuck her finger in a light socket.

“No! That's ridiculous!” Smith screamed, terrified that she might have to cough up $320 in support of a resolution she claims to support.

Pinches (opening his arms as if his point was obvious): “Well, that's what the Board of Supervisors are — it's the five of us! We're not talking about tax dollars here! And we have—”

Smith (condescendingly as if instructing a four year old): “The Board of Supervisors is a budgetary unit! You have to figure out where to apply it.”

Pinches: “Well, I don't want it to come out of the budgetary unit. I want it to come out of our pockets. I just want clarification.”

Hamburg: “My intention is that this money would be paid out of the general fund. Whether it comes out of Sue's [Ranochak’s] budget or out of the Board of Supervisors’ budget, I don't care.”

McCowen: “But, Supervisor. That's what I'm trying to clarify. Because it does make a difference as to which budget it comes out of. I think we need to know that before we vote on the motion.”

Pinches: “There are three options.”

McCowen: “At least.”

Hamburg: “Well commonly this is an item being placed on the ballot by the people. Which budget would that come out of?”

Ranochak: “It comes out of my budget. And the CEO develops that budget based on the information that we have at budget time. There are adjustments to be made and if there is something that's consolidated that the County decides to put on that ballot I go to Mr. Knopp and I inform him of what those estimated costs would be and we look at the bottom line for my budget unit and we go from there.”

The argument raged. Who would pay for the initiative to be placed on the ballot?

Interim County Counsel Terry Gross attempted some clarity.

“I am of the opinion that you could handle the placement of the advisory measure and deal with the fee waiver as you so want to do. The measure is going to cost, one way or another. So the waiver issue is moot. The way that we place a measure on the ballot is to sign the resolution.”

McCowen: “Thank you, but I don't think the fee waiver issue is moot. I think depending on how the motion is stated — now alternately to simply move adoption of the resolution would accomplish the recommended action and I think in that instance the funds would come out of the Board of Supervisors’ budget. That's what I understood the previous conversation to be about. Election official [McCowen insisted on calling Ms. Ranochak “Election Official” as opposed to “Sue,” Hamburg’s preferred moniker]: If we were to adopt the resolution we would simply, as an action by the Board, place the item on the ballot and we say nothing else about fees, you would bill the board?”

Ranochak: “No. I receive general fund money from the Elections budget unit. It’s budget unit 1410 and I am— I have budgeted to conduct a general election in November. As I stated before, if there is some additional cost in that election that are placed on there by the governing body, traditionally the Elections budget unit has absorbed that, whether we go over budget or under budget.”

McCowen: “OK. Well, that's different from previous answers, so I will go back to the maker of the motion and allow you to restate the motion the way you'd like it to be stated.”

Hamburg: “My motion is that the Board of Supervisors place the advisory measure on the November 6, 2012 ballot and in addition move the resolution presented by County Counsel.”

Smith, seeing that Hamburg’s motion wouldn’t dent her personal finances, quickly seconded.

Pinches: “I'm sure you don't want to hear from me anymore. But I'm going to say this: If the Board of Supervisors, the five of us, paid the cost for this, that's about 0.5% of our salary. Kyle [Knopp] mentioned the percent in the budget units, and that's not taxpayer dollars, that's our dollars. And we talk about how this is a voting issue and how we want to send a message. I think that would send an even stronger message if we, the Board, coughed up the $320 ourselves to support this. I just think this is an issue that we all support. That's clear. The question is, How strongly do we support it?”

Delighted cackling and chortling from the audience.

McCowen: “I don't disagree, Supervisor. I think it is going to be a personal choice if we want to reimburse the County what could be considered our proportional share of the cost of putting the item on the ballot. After all, we agendize it and adopt the item at no cost to the county. We may have exhausted this topic and beyond. So without further comment, we will vote on the motion on the floor by the button.”

The motion passed unanimously.

Another yelp! from the audience.

McCowen chuckled: “Thank you all.”

Applause from the audience.

McCowen: “Democracy in action, folks. It's not completely tidy. So we are considerably past our timed item…”

* * *

The real winner in this debate was not the United States which will proceed with corporate personhood and/or very rich people buying government so government will help them get richer no matter what Mendo votes.

In the end, the real winner was Supervisor Kendall Smith who, with a “voluntary” approach to individual Supervisors coughing up the fee, will be able to claim that she voted to end corporate personhood without it costing her one red cent.