Campaign Funding
Committees backed by the American Beverage Association have spent $3.5 million total to defeat measures proposing one cent per ounce taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages in Richmond and El Monte, CA.
A campaign finance amendment filed Tuesday by City Council candidate Nat Bates shows that he has received more than $32,000, far more than the $1,420 he listed in his original campaign disclosure statement on Friday. Campaign disclosure statements filed by the Chevron-funded committee Moving Forward show Bates also benefited from $90,000 on campaign mailings and billboards spent by the committee on his behalf. The amended disclosure elevates Bates to second in the list of candidates with the most funds raised…
The Texas-based movie theater chain Cinemark USA Inc has joined the campaign against Richmond’s Measure N, adding nearly $107,000 in non-monetary contributions against the measure between July 15-Sept. 30, according to campaign statements filed with the City Clerk. During that period, Cinemark was one of two contributors to the Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes, which has spent $2.2 million this year in opposition to Measure N. CCABT’s other — and largest — contributor is the American Beverage Association, a lobby…
The Chevron-funded campaign committee Moving Forward spent more than $100,000 in support of council candidates Gary Bell, Nat Bates and Bea Roberson between Aug. 9 and Sept. 28, campaign disclosures filed with the City Clerk show. Moving Forward’s money comes solely from a $1.2 million contribution from Chevron.
The Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes spent $1.8 million dollars on efforts to defeat Measure N between July 1-September 30, more than four times what it spent on the campaign in the six months between January and July. Campaign contribution statements filed with the city clerk Friday show that the CCABT, a local group funded mainly by the American Beverage Association, received $1.39 million in total contributions between July and September and spent $1.84 million on its efforts to defeat…
The city’s campaign disclosure law—which a federal judge suggested was unconstitutional earlier this month— was amended by the City Council Tuesday night. In a special meeting five days earlier to read through the amendments, Councilmember Jim Rogers said the revisions toned down the ordinance’s aggressiveness. “I guess you could look at [the original ordinance] as a Cadillac,” Rogers said. “And this one here, I guess you could look at it as a Ford.” The revisions to the ordinance addressed several…
Nearly a week after a judge criticized its campaign disclosure law, City Council considered making amendments Thursday to dial down what Councilmember Jim Rogers called the law’s aggressiveness. “I guess you could look at [the original ordinance] as a Cadillac,” Rogers said. “And this one here, I guess you could look at it as a Ford.” The city’s current campaign law requires a committee that receives more than one-third of its money from contributors outside of Richmond to write on…
A U.S. district judge told city attorneys this morning that Richmond didn’t “stand a chance of a prosecution” in enforcing its campaign disclosure laws against an anti-soda-tax group. The Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes filed a lawsuit against the city to prevent it from enforcing a law that would require the group to devote one-third of any mailer’s campaign disclosure section to the words “major funding from out-of-city-contributors.” Judge Charles R. Breyer ruled that the ordinance did not apply to…
[Editor’s note: this story has been corrected from a previous version to note that the the ordinance requires the text reading “major funding from out-of-city contributors” to take up one-third of the disclosure section of the front page of a mailer. The disclosure section itself takes up one-quarter of the front page.] An anti-soda tax lobbying group will argue in federal court tomorrow that the city cannot force it to disclose its financial contributions on campaign mailings. The Community Coalition…