The Lincoln Club gets federal Judge Irma Gonzalez to suspend San Diego's campaign finance laws

The Lincoln Club Gets a New Stick
by Scott Lewis
March 22, 2010

I'm not sure many people realized just how influential the Lincoln Club of San Diego just became. Well, wait. I should rephrase. How potentially influential the club became.

Last month, federal Judge Irma Gonzalez suspended many of the city's complicated campaign finance laws and I don't think the magnitude of what has changed has set in....Check out what's happened to the Lincoln Club.

Up until last month, if you wanted to support a candidate you could simply put up a billboard for them yourself. Spend as much as you want. It's free speech, have a blast. If you wanted to get together with some friends and each, say, give $20,000 to the effort, no problem. Again, go nuts. But you had to disclose, on the billboard, who paid for it.

If you didn't want it to say your name and wanted to communicate that your cause was more of a general popular one, you might want to put a committee's name on it. For instance, you might want it to say something like "Paid for by the Committee that Loves San Diego" instead of your actual names. If so, the city limited you and your friends to donations of $500 each.

At $500 each, you need a lot -- a lot -- of friends to make something significant happen. Let's say you would want to, like the firefighters in 2004, dump $100,000 into an ad campaign. You'd need 200 people to give $500 each. That might be possible but raising that much money would require a campaign of its own. On the other hand, the Lincoln Club has access to many who could give well more than $1,000 to an advertising blitz if they were motivated enough and the rules allowed.

This is what the Lincoln Club faced. It has an active membership of Republican supporters, many of whom have the means to spend a lot more than $500 each on a billboard. But they were limited to that and with a low limit like that, they couldn't get together behind the Lincoln Club banner and do as much as their money might normally seem to allow.

That's why they sued. A federal judge decided their suit had merit in light of this decision -- enough merit to at least suspend the city's rules for a bit.

And now, the members of the Lincoln Club of San Diego -- and any other group of people -- have the power to raise and spend as much as they'd like. And they can do it behind their organization's banner.

Though it has been active for years in school board and City Council races the club now can deploy far more resources. Instead of just mailers, the group's small membership can now raise more money and put out billboard and television campaigns. It can produce videos and mount websites...

How much money did the Lincoln Club give Cheryl Cox?

San Diego's Hillary?

The San Diego Union Tribune wrote about power couple Cheryl and Greg Cox on
January 1, 2007.

It would seem that Cheryl nourished her husband's political goals while holding her own considerable political ambitions in abeyance for a few years, much like Hillary Clinton.

But the Cox's are extreme right wingers, it seems.

"The Cox campaign raised more than $200,000, which was $45,000 more than Padilla's war chest. The conservative Lincoln Club of San Diego County independently spent $50,000 on direct mail attacking Padilla."

And that's not counting direct contribution's to Cox's campaign. Cheryl has repaid the favor by endorsing the Lincoln Club's former president, Bob Watkins, for US House of Representatives.

The San Diego Union Tribune quotes Cox as saying of herself and her husband, “We have pretty much lived our lives as an open book."

This is, of course, not true. Cox was as secretive as a board member could be while she was a board member at Chula Vista Elementary School District. She paid Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz and Parham & Rajcic law firms many $100,000s to hide what was going on at CVESD. And who recommended these law firms? Bob Watkins' own San Diego County Office of Education-Joint Powers Authority.




http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070101-9999-1n1coxes.html

Sunana Batra and I don't usually agree

I loved Sunana Batra's opinion piece in the North County Times (previous post), so I looked her up. I discovered that Sunana and I are usually miles apart.

I agreed with Sunana's analysis of the antics of Victoria Richart and the majority MiraCosta trustees, but my guess is that Sunana won't attack Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz, the lawyers who conducted the MiraCosta circus. After all, conservative favorite Leslie Devaney is a partner of the firm, along with Daniel Shinoff.

Here's what Sunana has written in the past.

First, an article from the North County Times posted on Free Republic on 12/06/2007.
Click HERE to see the Free Republic post.


New law (SB 777) tests the limits of tolerance
The North County Times
12/6/07

New law tests the limits of tolerance

By: SUNANA BATRA - Commentary:

I can't help but shake my head at the misguided parents who have once again drunk the California Teachers Association's Kool-Aid and see a new law meant to protect homosexual and transgender students (Senate Bill 777 ) as just another nice attempt to make sure no student is ever made to feel uncomfortable. They are the clueless frogs just getting comfortable in the warmth of a cozy bath that makes them feel oh so good and tolerant.

And, as in the parable, it won't be long before that warm bath soon becomes lava as their sons are forced to practice the "egg as a baby" exercise -- meant to foster an understanding of shared responsibility, relationships and cooperation -- not with a girl classmate but with Johnny...


The irony is stinging as we consider reports from Temecula of a student who fled her classroom in tears after her teacher, betraying tolerance herself, allegedly called Christians "out of control" and "prejudiced."

...As is fashionable across America these days, Christians are the first to be marginalized...

[Maura Larkins' note: We do have marginalized people in America, but Christians are not among them, unless they belong to another group that is actually marginalized.]


Here's another article by Sunana:

Red County
Politics from the Center Right
Click HERE to see the original post.

December 14, 2007
Sunana Batra's Report from the Lincoln Club
The following is a great write up Sunana Batra did for Red County on Mike Murphy's presentation to the Lincoln Club last nite....

Crazy times demand crazy leadership.


by Sunana Batra


A frequent speaker on elections and politics, Mike Murphy's keynote speech to the 24th annual Lincoln Club Christmas party was tremendous. After reading a few of his Backseat driving columns from the '04 election, I was expecting a few zingers from a guy who's got a great knack for brilliantly employing very visual metaphors that stay with you and I was not disappointed. Mike grabbed the audience's attention with his witty, at times cutting and insightful comments.


He suggested this year's election is a classic "wrong track" election, where the voters are demanding change and predicted Obama actually might win the nomination.

...The fact that Romney, who is very strong, comes off as too perfect and that his family appears to be out of a Sears catalog, perfect in every way, with no ugly children. (Crowd laughs.)

...He also added that we've got a great shot particularly if the Democrats keep being this cocky. "After all they're Democrats, so that means they are our secret weapon." (Crowd laughs again.)


...(footnote - 1. Mike Murphy had joked that he had written a letter to Dennis Kucinich, saying he had moved to his cause and had written him a possible slogan, "Crazy times demand crazy leadership," but got nothing back. I thought that was hilarious! (I'm from Cleveland and Kucinich was my Mayor when I was a kid. - SB)

Posted by Barry Jantz on December 14, 2007