The picture was from the street fair. Every candidate should be at the street fair and Simi Valley days in an election year.

I think the 600 dollar limit is too low a contribution limit for the county supervisors' race and it violates constitutional law.

Does any other campaign for any other board other than supervisor have to deal with such low contribution limits?

I also really dislike the fake voluntary candidate expenditure limits. It is clear that the government cannot regulate candidate controlled expenditures as that hinders free speech and free association. I'm interested to know if anyone is considering challenging this law on free speech grounds.

Heck! I'm all for limiting election donations to ONLY American citizens and putting a cap of $1000 on even that. That would certainly level the playing field and get corporations, unions, special interest groups and PACs out of the business of buying candidates, and the candidates back into the busines of representing American citizens.

600 or 300 dollars limits are too low. It is below any other contribution limits in the area for any seat.

From my understanding, the contribution limit is attached to whether a supervisor candidate decides to limit his/her campaign expenditures or not. So, if a candidate decided they wanted to spend more than $150,000 on the campaign for supervisor, they are limited to $300 dollars while if they say they will spend below that they can accept $600 dollar doantions.

These limits raise the issue of arbitrariness. Who chose these limits and are they narrowly tailored to meet the standard of limiting corruption. I would say they are not narrowly tailored as county government has not been able to provide comparable areas that have like laws that limit free speech in a campaign. Even the Supreme Court in a recent decision of Sorrell last June recognized that contribution limits can be too low as to limit free speech.

No other institution locally has such regressive limits as the county supervisor race.

Since the Supreme Court has ruled that government cannot regulate how much a candidate committee can spend on their own campaign, the county is creating a voluntary choice for a candidate that, in my view, candidates do not need to observe or answer. For instance, if Mr. Dantona or Mr. Foy declined to state how much he wanted to spend, what would be the consequences? How would the county apply the 300 or 600 dollar standard? Lastly, since the law doesn't deal with the matter of declining to state, one could decline and accept donations more in line with state law.

Most campaign finance reform regimes request a candidate accept voluntary expenditure limits, to accept public financing such as the presidential option on your tax return. This county law ties it to regressive contribution limits, which are not tied to inflation and are below any other limits for any other office.

In my view, a candidate is within their constitutional rights not to disclose to the county their campaign spending limits just as a person cannot not be compelled by government to support a position or I can decline to give to a candidate/cause I don't care for. Compulsory disclosure of candidate spending limits to the county creates a chilling effect on candidate speech as it creates a public choice for them to live by and be judged by. In this light, government is creating an image for the public based on the arbitrary position they take on this rule.

The county also does not attach an inflation factor on the donation levels, so essentially over time the 600 or 300 dollar donations will be of less value when adjusted for inflation for candidate. With the increasing expensiveness of campaigns, this will inherently ruin public activism in a campaign.

So, in my view, this law will be unsustainable and we will see much more self-financing of candidacies in the future, which doesn't bode well for voters. Second, since independent expenditure committees have increased protection, we will also see way more independent campaigns that take no money from any person to undermine or support a candidate/cause.

I'd love to hear the candidates viewpoint on county campaign finance laws. Since the first campaign finance laws have come on the books in the 70's, we have seen less people voting/participating, candidates more reliant on fundraising and less on policy development, and more negative campaigning as windows to get voter attention have been shorter and more expensive.

I think if the free market helps us to buy the best products it should also let us play eho is the highest bidder for politicians.

Does anyone think that if you donate $100,000 or nothing to George W. Bush you would recieve the same treatment or help getting earmarks?

The best solution is to stop voting for the RICO case brewing known as the RCCC!

My focus has been on the county ordinance and it's effect on local participation. It appears you want to turn this into a partisan issue, but my focus is more in line with the topic Mr. Dennert has given us on the county election. Have a good one.

My concerns are the same. If someone donates $50,000 to Peter Foy the day after the election to pay off any campaign debt how can I be assured he will treat that person the same as little ol' me?

I could try to vote him out but incumbents barely ever lose.

I could try to organize against him, but every Simi Valley Robot council will endorse him.

But all that doesn't really matter as I wouldn't know his private cell and his staff members cell phones. I wouldn't get calls returned as quick as lightning. I wouldn't get projects approved as quickly.

In your world I would tell every business that part of the cost of doing anything in this town in giving money. Kind of like Nigeria, Iraq, or Washington DC. But instead of calling them bribes, we call them donations.

Count me against legalized bribery.

We get the best money can buy and I don't understand why you keep trying to buy MY POLITICIANS.

If money didn't influence politics then every donor and lobbyist would be wasting their clients money. Do you really think the fortune 500 companies donate because they love democracy? They do it because it is effective. It is a hidden tax, and you are supporting a lawsuit to increase taxes.

Say no to the Scott B. hidden lawsuit tax increase!

Again, I'm talking about one local county ordinance and pointing out it's inconsistency with the the way the law has been interpreted recently in the courts and it's outside any other campaign finance laws in the area including state law.

The county has superseded it's authority by regulating contributions based on candidate expenditure commitments. They either must say they aren't going to spend over 150K or they are. I suppose the supervisors who passed this law had no bias with how they approached it.

For the record, I have absolutely no "standing" in court to challenge the law, so your fear attack over lawsuits is off-base and not based on any facts.

The Peter Foy example is incorrect and not based on reality. No one person can contribute 50,000 directly to a candidate-controlled account. Please find a real legal way for one person to give that kind of money to a candidate controlled committee and I'll change my tune.

This isn't a debate about federal or even state law for that matter, which you want to make it about, it's about the county ordinance, which I believe is inconsistent with some campaign finance decisions.

While you want to talk about Nigeria and corruption, I simply am making the argument that the county ordinance should be changed because no government body can mandate how much a candidate wants to spend and attach it to the 600 or 300 dollar threshold that is not indexed for inflation.

If contributions were consistent with all the other boards, districts, and independent of candidate campaign spending I'd have no problem. Despite all the hyperbole, the bottom line is this ordinance rations free speech both on the expenditure side and the contribution side.

I checked Foy's and Dantona's finance reports-Dantona's paying himself back-not the actions of a confident candidate.

Dantona paying himself back strikes me as just the opposite of what "Hmmmmmmmmm" believes. If he weren't confident in his ability to raise the money himself, he'd leave his loan in place. Go Team Dantona!

I think whether you paying yourself back or not is irrelevent. It appears Mr. Dantona is the only candidate to accept the 150K spending limits. If I were to make a donation to Mr. Dantona it states I can only give $600.00 while if you check out the Foy site there is no disclosure of how much I can give.

This law clearly benefits self-financing of campaigns and independent expenditure committees at the expense of the smaller hard money donors.

It's pretty clear Foy broke the fake "voluntary" spending caps of 159K while Dantona has not. On another point is while your individual donation does not adjust for inflation, the candidate spending does, so in four years, your 600 bucks will be worth less and candidates expenditure limits will adjust to CPI upward. In my view this inequality will create more campaigns driven by one time investors rather than a campaign organized around people.

Again, this law's sole purpose, in my view, is to erode smaller donors while keeping the other methods intact such as self-financing. Basically, one could start looking at the county supervisor seat as a good financial investment rather than an avenue to improve our lives.

Seriously, If I spend 200K or even 400K on the county seat and get paid in the first year over 100K back personally, that has a better rate of return than buying a business based on any valuation method I can think of.

This law is limiting the smaller participants at the expense of big time players. Basically, this campaign finance law would fit venture capitalist models rather than someone who really cares about their community.

I want to point out one other thing.

From 2003 to 2005 Candidate spending limits indexed for inflation went from 150K to 159K based on the Consumer Price Index.

Did your contribution limit also move up with that index? Nope. I guess when it comes to your contribution they will continue to drop in value when indexed with inflation to a candidate while they can continue to spend up to 159K. I wonder how a candidate will fill the financial gap? That's right, they will need strong personal wealth to even be taken seriously....

Meanwhile, your problems continue....

It appears that these campaign limits were purposely put into place by the Board of Supervisors to make it difficult for candidates to challenge incumbents who already had big war chests before the law was enacted. These previously collected contributions were not covered by fund raising limits, but could be used.

For example, Mikels already had a large sum (I believe in the neighborhood of $80,000) that she had received in large increments from a handful of developers and other interests that do business in and with the county. This money came in the month or two just prior to the law's enactment in amounts far exceeding the new limits that was to be imposed in this election.

This meant that to fully raise the assigned limit to run, any challenger - who could not fully finance their campaign from their personal fortune - would need at least 265 separate $600 donations to compete.

It is my understanding that Foy did not have to abide by these limits on contribution or spending as he was basically self-funded in the primary. Interestingly, in his call for campaing reform (term limits) during the primary, he made no mention of this law that favors incumbents and the very wealthiest candidates.

It appears that Dantona was actually the only candidate who really was forced to operate largely within these restrictions in the primary.

Laws governing campaign funding, whatever their specific features, should be applicable equally to all candidates or should not be enacted. Whether such a county ordinance is even constitutional in California is a larger question that I believe could and should be successfully be challenged once this election ends. If the county were smart and frugal, they might dump this bad law before shelling out legal fees defending it as they did in a recent case with a dubious ordinance on county budgeting.

Garibaldi:

I toally agree with your comments. If you get a minute check out the Supreme Court case Randall v. Sorrell. In it the court discusses that contribution limits can be too as to disable free speech of both contributors and a candidate's expenditures.

My point is that since no government can regulate how much a candidate can spend on his/her campaign, this forced choice of the 150K threshold is against the law. Also, attaching it to low contribution limits that aren't indexed for inflation will disable free speech of contirbutors over the long run.

This Sorrell case was released in June 06 and outlines that any sort of limits need to be narrowly tailored to fight corruption, but my point is I do not believe this law was designed for that purpose as no justification or camparable analysis for why such low limits were given.

It is interesting to note that Dantona has THREE committees. If you look at all of them, he has technically (but legally) gone over the limits. Go to www.ventura.org and find the County Clerk. Then check the campaign reports! I will say that Dantona is smarter than the average "Joe" but is that a good thing in this situation? I don't think so!

Say what you want about the $$$$ but Foy will take personal MONEY both his own and SPECIAL INTEREST sources that are given to him and make it seem as if he is loaning himself the MONEY to run his campaign. He has been hiding where he is getting his MONEY since the primary. Be careful of Foy he is a WOLF in SHEEPS clothing.

Foy and his Extremist supporters will spend whatever they have to to get their proxy into office. Why do you think Leslie Cornejo got the boot, only to be replaced by Mike Osborn, Foy's former campaign manager? Why do you think Audra Strickland got beat up by these same folk? Or why the Extremists worked so hard to get Mikels out of office? It was because the Extremists want to control county politics, bring extremist national politics to local government and Foy is the cuckoo they're trying to place in Ventura's nest.

Gary,no offense, but really...portraying Audra as some sort of victim in all of this is laughable. The only reason she and her do-nothing husband Tony endorsed Dantona originally, was because they wanted some payback on fellow Republican Mikels, for some past slight, real or imagined. They didn't care about his party affiliation, because it was a non-partisan race. But given the choice between a reasonable guy like Dantona, and backing one of their OWN KIND, which at their core is winger religious fanatic, they couldn't switch their endorsement fast enough. Think I'm wrong? Just look at who they're supporting in the Conejo School Board race. There are a few moderate Republicans (and Democrats) running, but it's well known that they are pushing HARD to support the biggest joke and extremist in the race, Mike Dunn, and probably his buddy John Anderson too. Leslie might indeed have fallen prey to opportunist extremists with an agenda. It's no secret that the GOP has little use for women in power that don't lock step. But Audra? Bah. She's one of them.

IronFelix you tasked me with finding meaning to your name.

E-mail me, as I have an answer.

Laura, I don't disagree inre Audra. But there's no question in my mind that despite Audra's motives in supporting Dantona her punishment was swift BECAUSE she publicly broke ranks with the Extremists.

Its likely that Audra isn't the far right winger you think she is (I think she's simply a political opportunist and rode in on the far Right Wave) and feels that Foy represents the worst choice for the future of County politics, hence her reluctance to endorse him but she can't do that, now that the Extremists have grabbed control of the Party, or the wave will suddenly dry up beneath her.

That's too bad for all the politicos that have chosen to kowtow to the Extremists because their self-serving lack of character won't go unnoticed in future polls.

Laura, speaking of Foy. You Dems don't stand a chance of getting a Dog Catcher elected if you consider an opponent's religious beliefs in such jaded terms as "fanatic".

I consider myself a devout Christian but only because I believe that trying to follow in Christ's example makes one a good Christian. Foy wants everyone to know that he's a more intensely devout Christian, and probably has an OT passage for every occasion to prove it, even though he associates with some that the James Hartline Report & The Free Republic would describe as anathema to all good Christians.

It's interesting that Steve Frank and Robynn Nordell, two far right conservatives apparently rated Jim Dantona more favorably than Peter Foy coming up to June's primary, though they too joined ranks with the Extremists to ensure Foy's election.

So the question remains: why are the Extremists working so hard to cannibalize their own Party members to elect a man with no experience, a string of financial and business irregularities, perhaps a poor understanding of what a good Christian really is and whose opponent had garnered the lion's share of conservative and moderate support?

Its NOT because they think Foy's the best man for the office but I'm willing to bet its because they feel he's the best man to carry out their agenda once he's in office.

The enxt question is: what's the Extremists' agenda?

FYI, Peter Foy will be speaking on September 15, 2006 at 12:00 AM to the Simi Valley-Moorpark Republican Women, Federated. The meeting will be located at the Lost Canyons Gulf Club, 3301 Lost Canyons Dr., SV 93063. Paul Miller and Glen Becerra will also speak.

previous post should have read not SVRWF.

That's all good and fine but how about BOTH candidates talking to an audience that's not pre-screened by the candidates' handlers?

Dantona has 3 committees? New joke in town: How many committees does it take for a Dantona to come in second? A: as many as it takes.

And GS, why would the Republican Women Federated care AT ALL what a liberal Democrat twice-divorced twice-bankrupted male says??

Cause those women may find out their Party's extremists are backing a candidate with a heck of a lot more issues than just a divorce.

As a conservative Republican woman I can tell you I feel much more comfortable with Jim Dantona than I do with Peter Foy. Peter Foy has a bad history with women and I should know. In addition Jim Dantona has the expierence that we are going to need in our district and county. I don't agree with him on all issues, but no one agrees with anyone on all issues. But he is intelligent and is always willing to listen. I've only voted for one Democrat in my life John F. Kennedy and in today's world he would fit well as a moderate to conservative in either party. Jim Dantona has my vote and confidence.

Dantona is one of the most moderate candidates I've ever had the pleasure to support. These right wing born again folks scare the pants off me. Women, blacks, brown, middle/lower class whites, jews, . . . are all doomed under the dogma of these right wing nuts. Give them a gun and a bible and they will throw the constitution into the river and bring the Taliban to the U.S.A.

What scares me is that the Christian churches are being bamboozled into thinking that Foy and his CNP handlers are good for family values. They're not! If they only knew that the trend among members of the Council on National Policy is to DENY Christ as an example for us to follow and to do away with the Constitution to create a New America based on Old Testament law. That's NOT Christian nor Family Values, that's plain treason.

Plus, they're hypocrites! The CNP-allied Extremists talk up a good game while securing support from churches across the country but their actions show them for the cynical, opportunistic wolves they really are. In sheep's clothing, they tell churches they're against homosexuality and abortion in an effort to secure support yet James Hartline's online report blasts some of Foy's handlers for secretly supporting just those two things. Even Steve Frank and Robynn Nordell give Jim Dantona a higher rating than they do Foy. Foy's colleagues in the CNP include Jack Abrams, Tom Delay and a half dozen other mega-criminals that have been convicted of bamboozling good people out of their hard-earned money. That's not Christian or Family Values, that's criminal.

If there's one thing I learned in church it's to shun a hypocrite and the Extremists that have hijacked the County GOP organization have proven themselves to be the worst hyocrites. Every good Republican voter and every good church member should shun them also.

I heard that Jim Dantona had a town hall meeting a few weeks back. Does anyone know what happened at the meeting? What is happening with the landfill?