06-14-07 by dugan
I was posting an item to a sister site, Dirtymoneywatch.org, and realized the topic deserved a mention here. Chevron, California’s own Big Oil, is among the wealthiest and most powerful special interests in the state Legislature. However, until now, strong city ethics and campaign finance rules have kept Chevron and other bigfoots on the back burner in municipal elections, at least in terms of backing individual candidates.
A bill jamming through the Legislature (AB1430) is about to change that, allowing big business interests to support individual local candidates with unlimited donations laundered through the state’s political parties.
Local officials, who should be enraged at this bigfooting, may be too tempted by big bucks from oil, developers and insurance companies to lobby against it. Chevron, with large and often dirty operations in Southern California, the East Bay and Central California oilfields, would certainly hope so.