Do you really know who’s trying to buy your vote?
On Tuesday, Californians will head to the polls to weigh in on which candidates and issues best reflect our interests as a state. No matter what your political affiliation, there’s one thing we all have in common: In order to make good decisions at the ballot box, we need access to reliable information about what we’re voting on.
Unfortunately, much of the information we encounter as voters is far from reliable. From our inboxes to our mailboxes and television to Facebook, we’re constantly bombarded with messages that have been tailor-made to influence the way we vote, even if it means deceiving us into voting against our own interests. Ultimately, it’s up to us to decide what to believe.
Fortunately, there’s one piece of information that will almost always reveal the true interests behind a given political message:
The sources of funding that paid for it.
Each election, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent to persuade Californians how to vote. The donors who provide this money generally have a vested interest in the outcome. As voters, we understand this, which is why when we know the true sources of money behind a campaign, we take this information into account.
Consider Proposition 23, the 2010 ballot measure that would have suspended California’s landmark program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ads promoting the measure claimed it would stop increases in electricity and gas prices and save millions of California jobs, arguments any sensible voter would find appealing when taken at face value. However, when it came to light that the campaign supporting the measure was being paid for with millions of dollars from Texas oil companies, a wave of public outrage arose to successfully defeat it.
As we consider who and what to vote for this week, many of us will naturally consult the state’s official voter information pamphlet and the voting guides prepared by people and organizations we trust, as we well should.
But in addition to this, as our politics are increasingly shaped by special interest influence, it’s critical that we make an effort to follow the money.
Recent reforms have made this easier. The California DISCLOSE Act, passed last year, requires certain political ads — those paid for by outside groups formed specifically to support a particular candidate or ballot measure — provide immediate access to information about the sources of money behind them. On video ads and print mailers, this looks like a box at the bottom of the ad that lists the names of its top funders. On Internet ads, this looks like a clickable link reading “Who funded this ad?” that will take voters to a web page similarly required to list the campaign’s top funders at its bottom.
As voters, we need to get in the habit of taking note of this vital information about the sources of money behind political messages whenever it’s available.
But we also need to demand that our newly elected leaders prioritize fixing the fundamental ways in which the availability of this information continues to fall short.
For example, it’s high time that we close the loopholes in our state law allowing special interests to remain hidden from clear public view by laundering their campaign money through shell groups.
And voters should be able to immediately know the true sources of funding behind every political ad we see. Not just some of them.
As California voters, it should be our unassailable right to know who’s trying to influence our decisions on Election Day.
The health of our democracy depends on it.