Your eyes on California Government

SEPT. 14, 2011

By KATY GRIMES

The trail of campaign contributions leads to all politicians’ doors. However, the trail between labor unions and Democratic politicians is more like a Yellow Brick Road, making California look more like the Land of Oz every legislative session.

As the state Legislature prepared for the end of the session last week, several bills were gutted and amended. The amending was done on behalf of labor unions by complicit state Democratic legislators.

But more than just slipping bills through an accelerated legislative process, many of the gut-and-amend bills were sneaky and were kept in the dark deliberately, designed only to further constrain remaining flexibility in local government contracting.

As expected, the Legislature passed SB 922, a nasty, completely gutted bill, which would require Project Labor Agreements for construction projects in the state, and would financially penalize cities which ban the agreements.

As I wrote last week, SB 922 was taken over by new authors, the Democratic leaders in the Legislature: Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento and Assembly Speaker John Perez of Los Angeles, both former union leaders.

SB 922 started out as a bill about immunizations and tuberculosis screening. But it was gutted and amended on Sept. 2, and now would end “fair and open competition” policies, and would terminate any PLA bans enacted by city and county governments.

It became so evident that labor unions had convinced Democratic state legislators to run roughshod over local governments in a plan to nullify existing bans on Project Labor Agreements by local governments. According to the bill, if a local government refuses to participate in Project Labor Agreements, the state would cut off state funding to the local governments.

Following the Yellow Brick Road of influence money was enlightening and possible because of groups like Maplight.org,  a nonpartisan political money tracker that reveals money’s influence on politics.  What Maplight reveals is true on both sides of the political aisle, but not when labor unions are involved.

According to Maplight.org, 40 labor unions supported passage of the PLA bill, but only eight non-union trade associations were opposed.

Nearly $3.4 million in total was contributed to the passage of SB 922 by construction trade unions, teamsters, contractors and municipal government organizations. Construction unions contributed more than $2.5 million, electrical workers nearly $528,000, teamsters nearly $128,000, labor unions nearly $120,000, electrical contractors nearly $30,000 and $20,000 from municipal and county government organizations.

Attempting to defeat the bill, non-union builder associations, engineers, architecture and construction management services and special trade contractors contributed nearly $840,000. Of that amount, nearly $555,000 came from builders’ associations; nearly $221,000 from engineers, architecture and management services; and nearly $65,000 from specialty trade contractors.

Contribution Recipients

The bill’s author, Steinberg, received $246,350 from union groups supporting the bill, and $61,472 from non-union groups opposed to SB 922.

Perez, the bill’s coauthor, received $259,100 from the union groups supporting SB 922.

Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, received $423,348 from groups supporting the bill, and $15,749 from groups opposed to SB 922.

Other big recipients of the labor and trade union contributions were:

Sen. Kevin DeLeon, D-Los Angeles, $223,900.

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, $180,350.

Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, $171,750.

Sen Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, $174,550.

Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, $169,663.

Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, $164,189. However, even with the $164,189 contribution, Yee didn’t cast a vote on the bill.

Several Republicans received no money from unions supporting SB 922. And only Sen. Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster, received no money from either side.

Contributions by Legislator

The average contribution to senators who voted “yes” on SB 922 was $131,592. The average contribution to senators who voted “no,” was $25,077.

Key Votes

Key votes took place in committees after the bill was gutted and amended last week. In the Senate Governance and Finance committee. a rather hurried hearing took place Sept. 9, the last day of session, because of the last-minute amendments.

Democratic committee members DeSaulnier ($423,348), Hancock ($146,500), Kehoe ($98,150), Liu ($138,500) and Wolk ($171,750) all cast “yes” votes for the passage of SB 922 out of the committee. In total, the five votes needed for passage of the bill cost labor unions $978,248 — just for “yes” votes from one committee. That was more than the total amount of contributions from non-union trade associations opposed to the bill.

That was just in the Senate. The Assembly Appropriations Committee members who voted the bill out to the Senate Governance Committee were Democratic Assembly members Blumenfield ($106,500), Bradford ($26,800), Campos ($125,600), Davis ($15,800), Fuentes ($114,800), Gatto ($72,900), Hall ($83,850), Hill ($77,050), Lara ($54,450) and Solorio ($99,200).

The total contribution to the Assembly Appropriation Committee Democrats is $775,950. That was only $64,000 shy of the $840,000 total contribution from the non-union trade and construction associations opposing the bill.

This is just the money trail on one bill. Legislators introduce 3,000 to 4,000 bills every year and several hundred are signed into law.

Thanks to the California Legislature, last year 725 new laws were created and signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Is it any wonder that California lawmakers don’t want to be a part-time employees? California is the Emerald City for many in politics.

Tags: budget, budget deficit, California, California Legislature, darrell Steinberg, Democrats, election, government, Jerry Brown, jobs, Katy Grimes, legislature, pensions, Public Employee Unions, Republicans, Sacramento, unions, waste