Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum will visit the East Bay for a fundraising event next Thursday evening.
Tickets for the event at the Alamo home of Ubokia.com CEO Mark Pine and his wife, Becky, start at $125 per person for a general dessert reception; $500 buys access to a VIP photo meeting with the candidate, and $2,500 buys access to the host committee’s private reception with the candidate.
The hosts include former Rep. Bill Baker and his wife, Joanne; Realtors Richard and Mary Jo Bedayn; tea party activist Bridget Melson and her husband, Mike; Bob and Joan Stover; and the Frederick Douglass Foundation.
March 22
The state Assembly voted 48-22 today to urge Congress to amend the U.S. Constitution as a means of overturning a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that unleashed a deluge of unlimited political spending by corporations and unions.
If the state Senate passes it as well, Assembly Joint Resolution 22, co-authored by Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, and Assemblyman Michael Allen, D-Santa Rosa, will put California amid a national grass-roots movement. Hawaii and New Mexico have passed similar resolutions, as have more than 100 cities across the nation including Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond and Fairfax.
Today’s vote was along straight party lines, with all the ayes from Democrats and all the nays from Republicans; 10 members were absent or not voting.
“The Citizens United decision is judicial activism run amok,” Wieckowski said in a news release. “For more than a century, Congress and the Supreme Court have recognized the need to differentiate between people and the vast amount of wealth at the disposal of large corporations. The floodgates were opened by this ruling and now a small number of very wealthy interests are having a greater influence on our national politics than ever before.”
The Supreme Court’s holding that the First Amendment bars the government from restricting political spending by corporations and unions led to the creation of “Super PACs” — often funded by a just few wealthy donors — that now essentially serve as shadow campaigns for the presidential candidates, but without any fundraising limits.
Groups including Public Citizen, Common Cause, the California Public Interest Research Project (CalPIRG), California Church Impact, California Labor Federation, California Nurses Association, California Professional Firefighters and the California League of Conservation Voters support AJR 22.
Jonah Minkoff-Zern, senior organizer with Public Citizen’s Democracy Is For People campaign, said this movement has percolated up from the streets. “It is because of the work of dedicated activists throughout the state that California’s elected officials are joining them in taking a stand to say that democracy is for people, not for corporations.”
Public Citizen helped lead the introduction of similar resolutions in Massachusetts, Vermont and Maryland, and has supported activists’ and lawmakers’ efforts to introduce similar resolutions in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas and New York.