Million Dollar Baby

Home | Subscribe | Donate | Get Involved | Contact Us

News Archive - Web Logs - Press Releases

May 13, 2005 - 11:30 AM

Million Dollar Baby

by Douglas Heller

California law limits the campaign contributions a Governor may accept to $22,300 from any single donor. A recent court ruling, however, said that Arnold can blow through those limits as long as the money goes to a political committee that is not for his re-election bid. And this week, Arnold demonstrated how severely that ruling fails California voters and his promise to clean up Sacramento. The Gov accepted a single contribution of $1,000,000 from former DHL executive (and Idaho resident) William Robinson into the bank account known as "Governor Schwarzenegger's California Recovery Team."

Since this is officially an account for running Arnold TV-ads about ballot measures -- and not Arnold TV-ads about his re-election bid -- the contribution is considered "lawful." Drop the "L," because it's awful. It's Arnold playing accounting games to skirt the campaign finance laws enacted by California voters at the ballot.

In other news, the Sacramento Bee is reporting that Arnold will set up a new Office of the Inspector General to go after potential scandals within the Governor's administration. So long as the IG is actually independent, ArnoldWatch is all for it. In fact, we've made a list for the new IG to start looking into... Click here to read the list.

ArnoldWatch is a project of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a non-profit, nonpartisan organization. FTCR does not endorse or oppose candidates.