 True funders of state political ads not clear
Congresswoman Anna Eshoo has long been a champion of
campaign finance transparency and in her oped (Opinion, May
18) she made a good case for improving it at the federal
level, but unfortunately, in her opening paragraph, she was
much more sanguine about the situation here in California
than is merited by the facts. Our state laws do not require
the true funders of ads to be clearly and unambiguously
disclosed. Instead, if they appear at all, they're in fine
print, all caps (hard to read) and usually disguised with
some misleading, innocuous sounding name like "Californians
for Warm Puppies." Voters did indeed find out about the
true funders of the ads in the 2010 campaign she describes,
and that did make a huge difference, but this was a rare
exception to the norm. It's ironic that the Congresswoman
would overlook this sad fact because she has long been a
strong supporter of the California Disclose Act, AB 700, a
bill currently working its way through the Assembly which
would address this very problem. Forgiving her oversight is
therefore quite easy. 
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