On gaming the election process
in San Bernardino County
for this coming June 3,

 2008 election

(1)         Guards out

(2)         Switch In

(3)         Identity donations

(4)         Exclusionary campaign charge

Gateway to democracy:  “The reality of the people’s sovereignty depends on the integrity of the elections, that is, whether or not they represent a true choice by the people. If their choice is decided by fraud or deceit, or preemptively determined by some other means, the exercise of sovereign power passes to the successful deceivers and manipulators, whoever they may be.  In this event, the outward appearance of elections is simply a way of procuring the people’s submission to the will of their actual rulers.”  --Alan Keys, “The Crisis of the Republic”, Part 3, May 9, 2007.

Gateway guardians, the law:  “The success of the democratic process requires fair and open elections which accurately reflect the intent of the electorate.  Therefore, it is our unique role as an election official to serve as gatekeepers of Democracy.”   --From “Principles of Elections” posted on the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voter’s official web site.

Gateway guardians, the practice: “County government was controlled by a few privileged and wealthy contractors and developers who through campaign contributions guarded the doors to all important elected positions in the County.”  --Supervisor John Joyner’s autobiographical sketch in “San Bernardino County Supervisors, 1855-1999, compiled by John C. Funk, published by San Bernardino County.

Adverse cumulative side effect of special interest guards:  “Corruption concerns have plagued the county since a major investigation brought down several top officials in the late 1990s, including then Supervisor Jerry Eaves.  Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, called the county the ‘Wild West of ethics.’  ‘Whenever we think about major problems, we think about San Bernardino County because so many things have occurred there,’ he said. The number of grand jury investigations, subpoenas and search warrants involving county officials exceeds those in other California counties, Stern said. “There seems to be a different culture there that people think they can get away with it,’ Stern said, about San Bernardino County.”  “Raid Clouds County”, Sun, April 12, 2008, George Watson and Lauren McSherry.

 “Guards Out”
Gaming strategy #1

Democracy’s defining characteristic is the fair and open election accurately reflecting the intent of the electorate.  However, there will be no such defining moment in the 2008 First District Supervisor election, which is neither fair nor open because those in control of the governing process in this county are gaming this coming election. Big time.

The biggest gaming factor, and it is endemic to our political process nation wide, is the exorbitant cost of campaigning for public office.  “Those voters who wish to express views that are not supported by wealthy voters are left without an outlet,” as a study by the United States Public Interest Research Group points out on their website.

“The most significant problem with money in politics is that large contributions, which only a fraction of the American public can afford to make, unduly influence who runs for office and who wins elections in the United States.  Money is a critical --and perhaps decisive--factor in determining election outcomes. Candidates who wish to present their views to voters must first compete in the ‘wealth primary.’  Without personal wealth or ability to raise large sums of money from well-heeled contributors, many aspiring officeholders are locked out of the process before the first vote is cast.  --US-PIRG website, report of November 1, 2006.

The power of special interest money in the political arena was well illustrated in the 1950s by California state lobbyist Art Samish who “was a fantastically effective political boss without a political party.  Lobbyist supreme, he could push through laws or stop them cold;  ‘Select and Elect’ attorneys general, senators, assemblymen, and mayors; make or break governors.’” --Cover notes to “The Secret Boss of California, the life and high times of Art Samish”; Crown Publishers, 1971.

In his own words: “I knew what the law said about criminal lobbying; it’s right there in the state Constitution. ‘Any person who seeks to influence the vote of a member of the Legislature by bribery, promise of reward, intimidation, or any other dishonest means, shall be guilty of a felony.’ Bribery? Promise of reward? Intimidation? That was for amateurs.  It certainly wasn’t for Art Samish.  My method of delivering votes was the soul of simplicity.  It was merely this: Select and Elect.  That was all.  I simply selected those men I thought would be friendly to my client’s interests.  Then I saw to it that those men got elected to the legislature.  Select and elect É I didn’t care whether he was a Republican or a Democrat or a Prohibitionist.  I didn’t care whether he voted against free love or for the boll weevil. All I cared about was how he voted on legislation affecting my clients.”

And this distorting of the election process posed by concentrated special interest money certainly exists here in San Bernardino County.  As County Supervisor John Joyner, 1982-1988, wrote in an autobiographical sketch, “County government was controlled by a few privileged and wealthy contractors and developers who through campaign contributions guarded the doors to all important elected positions in the County.”  -- “San Bernardino County Supervisors, 1855-1999”, compiled by John C. Funk, published by San Bernardino County. 

The housing industry influence on county government during this period was manifested by our nine-member county planning commission in 1986 with eight commissioners then currently or recently licensed to sell or broker real state, each appointed by a county supervisor.

Those housing industry guards were in place long before Supervisor Joyner managed to get past them in 1982. Financially independent from non realty business ventures, Mr Joyner was a major voice in a campaign to recall Supervisor Bob Older for being “too pro growth”, and with an angry electorate watching, the board had little choice but to appoint him as interim supervisor to complete the recalled supervisor’s term of office.  With a reputation for fighting uncontrolled growth, independent means, and an electorate which had recalled their last choice for being too pro growth, Supervisor Joyner won the 1984 election.

Today, those housing industry guards with their bags of money and blacklists are still in place at the gate to the Registrar of Voter’s Office controlling the election process for “all important elected positions in the County”--as is well established by the campaign contributions reported by the fourteen county supervisors elected since Supervisor Joyner left office. 

Today our county planning commission has only five members, and four commissioners hold or recently held a license to sell or broker real estate. And the most recently seated county supervisor, chosen by the board of supervisors to replace the elected First District supervisor who quit to take another job, according to his resume submitted for the appointment, worked from 1994 to 2000 as the Deputy Director for the Building Industry Association’s Baldy Mesa Chapter.

This control of the election process by the housing industry has made a few individuals very rich.  It has also made San Bernardino County the worst example of urban sprawl in the nation, according to a Rutgers/Cornell University study reported by the Sun in it’s October 26, 2002 issue, on page B1.

“Switch In”
Gaming strategy #2

Why would a politician resign as a county supervisor to take the less prestigious job of county assessor?  This question was often asked in the months preceding the election of Bill Postmus, then First District Supervisor, to the office of county assessor in 2006. And no media voice to date has presented a satisfactory answer as to why, instead of climbing the political ladder, Bill Postmus took this downward step toward political obscurity from his position as the most politically powerful elected official in the county.

One thing is very clear about this Postmus step-down, however.  It virtually guaranteed that his Chief of Staff and heir-designate Brad Mitzelfelt, appointed interim supervisor by the board in a sham selection process which game him the incumbency factor and a year to raise campaign contributions, would be elected First District Supervisor in the 2008 election. 

Of the 125 supervisorial elections in our county in the past fifty years, the incumbent won 79.9 percent of the time.  And with $850,000 collected during his interim appointment from those housing industry guards, statistically speaking, the 2008 election is Mr Mitzelfelt’s election to lose--orchestrated by county politics having nothing to do with the will of the people.

“Identity Donations”
Gaming strategy #3

We hear much about identity theft today. We do not, however, hear so much about identity donations, aka rumor-mongering, smearing an adversary with false information adversely reflecting on their character.

Before the Internet, rumor-mongering’s medium was word of mouth, with media voices using innuendo to skirt the laws against libel and slander.  And of course such old fashioned rumor-mongering still takes place. But with the Internet, rumor mongering has gone high tech. And government itself has formally entered the game. 

“Government: Using Internet to research candidates” was the sub-title of a Daily Press article in their March 31, 2008 issue. The article focused on an Apple Valley High School class on American Government.  Had those students decided to use the Internet to check out the four candidates for First District Supervisor in this coming June 3, 2008 election, they would have been in for a real shock. 

As of the day this article appeared, but not today, a query on the Superior Court page of the county’s website, for all criminal cases filed against “Nelson, Robert A”, and his driver’s license number, would have returned fifteen criminal cases filed against this candidate since 1997!  And a query without a driver’s license number, just “Nelson, Robert A.” would have returned that same list of fifteen criminal cases.

Of course in our electron world village, once such data is on the Internet, subject to info-mining, it never disappears.  Like those feathers loosed on a hilltop on a windy day used in times past to illustrate the evil of rumors, once info-mined, such data, true or bogus, can never be put back in the case.

Why, you might well ask, would county government spread lies about private individuals?  And the answer in this case is because government doesn’t like what this fellow was saying, on the record, at public meetings, or the questions he was asking about the public business being conducted at these meetings.

This candidate, along with Mr Jeff Wright and Ms Shirley Goodwin, was one of three individuals named as victims of county prosecutorial abuse by Terry Franke, then general counsel to the California First Amendment Coalition.  The occasion was the presentation of Black Hole Awards to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office and to the County Board of Supervisors for suppressing public meeting freedoms by their respective parts in “the county’s extraordinary series of arrests, prosecutions, and jail sentences targeting several citizens for exceeding speaking time limits and talking out of turn or ‘off-topic’ at public meetings.”  --Agenda item, Fifth Annual California First Amendment Assembly, Cal State Fullerton, October 14, 2000.

Mr Wright, for example, was speaking of “Jerry Eaves and his band of thieves” long before Mr Eaves confessed to felony abuse of his office and long before the felon James Hlawek confessed to his part as county administrative officer in the “longstanding, wide-ranging culture of corruption in San Bernardino County involving conflicts of interest, sweetheart deals and payoffs.”  --From his statement to the FBI; Sun, August 30, 2001.

Of these fifteen criminal cases allegedly filed against this candidate for public office, seven were for Vehicle Code violations, one was for violation of the state Fish & Game Code, and six were for Penal Code violations, including maliciously interfering with a public safety radio frequency, trespassing, violating a court order, resisting arrest, and disturbing a public meeting.

However, had the students tried to look up those Vehicle Code or the Fish and Game Code violations, they would have found none of the sections listed were valid.  And had they gone to the court clerk’s office and asked to see copies of these eight cases they would have been told none of these eight cases exist.

Pure fiction each of these eight “cases” were. In fact, that candidate has never been charged with a Vehicle Code violation, or even arrested for such an offense. And the same with the Fish & Game case. No such case was ever filed nor had such an arrest ever been made.

The six Penal Code cases listed did have valid case numbers and valid statute sections. And each case listed did represent an arrest of the candidate which actually took place.  But the listing of these six criminal cases on the county website says much more about our county government than it does about the candidate for public office.

Maliciously interfering with a public safety radio frequency, for example, is a very serious crime against the entire community, a crime a terrorist might commit, and so likely to trigger a red flag at the Department of Homeland Security. However, had a student gone to the court clerk’s office and requested to see a copy of the case listed, they would find only one count, misdemeanor disturbance of a public meeting, an offense generally punished by “nothing more than a small fine” in the rest of America, according to California Supreme Court research footnoted in the court’s touchstone case on public meeting freedoms, In re Kay. 1 Cal.3d 930.

Three days before this case was filed, the candidate was arrested at a county board of supervisors meeting for disturbance of a public meeting. On being told his three minutes to speak an agenda item were up, he politely declined to yield the podium, insisting he was entitled to more than three minutes to address his concerns regarding the 123 items on the consent calendar portion of the agenda.

After the chairman ordered the deputy sheriff assigned as the sergeant at arms to remove the speaker, the following six second conversation occurred between the deputy and the speaker, as attested to by over a hundred eye-witnesses and recordings made by the arresting officer’s belt tape recorder and video cameras operated by the county and a public access videographer:

“Please leave the podium.
Am I under arrest?
Yes sir.
What for?
Disturbing a public meeting.
All right.”

At this point the speaker and the deputy left the hearing chambers without further incident.   By law, PC 403, disturbing a public meeting, is a cite and release offense. Yet this speaker was taken directly to jail and held on $1,140 bail.  Take that, free speech.

The written standing orders for the sergeant at arms post dated November 29, 2001, signed by Sheriff’s Lieutenant Paul Kellner of the Central Station says in part that if a speaker “has to be physically removed they shall be placed under arrest and charged with PC 403 Disturbing a Public Meeting and PC 148, Obstructing a Peace Officer.”

Those in control of the arrest process that day deemed the speaker to have resisted arrest/delayed a peace officer in violation of Penal Code Section 148(a) by refusing to “immediately” obey the deputy’s order to yield the podium. And never mind that an appellate court consisting of three county judges had previously overturned three such PC 148(a) convictions for board meeting arrests opining that “Although appellant refused to leave the podium until he was arrested, at no time did he resist arrest.  He was not violent or belligerent.  In fact, far from resisting or delaying the officers in the performance of their duties, appellant quietly insisted that each officer perform his duty in a definitively official manner, that is, by making an arrest.  Such behavior does not support a conviction for violating section 148.” --Judge Douglas M. Elwell, presiding, People v. Nelson, CR.A. 3412, (Trial Court MSB 030952); Per Curium Opinion reversing three convictions for violating Penal Code ¤148(a), May, 2000.

Further, this evil removal protocol provides that a speaker “obstructing a peace officer” may be taken to the West Valley Detention Center to be booked and released before midnight, twenty miles from the County Government Center parking lot.  And if the speaker had been arrested at a board meeting before, this removal protocol calls for the speaker to be held on bail.

In accord with this removal protocol, as interpreted that day, the speaker was transported to the West Valley Detention Center where the booking request listed this account of the arrest, in the arresting officer’s own hand writing: 

“The above listed suspect was present at the county board of supervisors meeting. At about 10:15 he was allowed to speak by the chairman of the board. After his time was up the suspect refused to stop talking and was ordered several times to leave the speaker’s podium.  He refused and had to be arrested before he would leave.  A/r [ arrest ] was at the beginning of the meeting where the board had over one hundred items to address. Mr Nelson has been arrested many times for the same charges.”  Deputy Martin, if memory serves.

There were three problems with holding the candidate on bail.  (1) Disturbing a public meeting, a cite and release offense, did not even justify booking the speaker into jail, much less holding him on bail. (2) An appellate court had previously ruled that the speaker was not disturbing a meeting by insisting on the formal process of arrest prior to surrendering his public meeting rights.  And (3), that day, due to jail overcrowding, in accord with a court order, the sheriff’s department was citing and releasing on their own recognizance arrestees who would normally have been held on up to $50,000 bail.  Grand theft auto and such.

So county government lied.  Said the fellow had maliciously interfered with a public safety radio frequency, a crime more serious than grand theft auto since it was a crime against the entire community.

County government then compounded this gross abuse of its power by listing the case filed on the county website with a count 1 maliciously interfering with a public radio safety frequency.  A bogus charge followed by a bogus entry into the county’s website list of criminal cases filed. Justice, San Bernardino County style.

This case was dismissed at its first court appearance at prosecution’s request. The Sun’s editorial on the dismissal,  “Supervisors too harsh on critics/ Prosecutors find no room to crack down on those who violate the three-minute rule”, of September 18, 2004, reported that “prosecutors have conceded Nelson committed no crime by refusing to yield the speaker’s podium after his three minutes were up ... . After reviewing a videotape of the meeting, Deputy District Attorney Timothy Dixon said Nelson essentially had done nothing wrong.” The Sun called this dismissal, after “many arrests”, a “vindication” of free speech and a “validation” of the right to dissent.

Another of the six criminal cases listed which actually pertained to the candidate, MSB-030952 (2004) was listed as a PC 148 (a), resisting arrest/delaying a peace officer case.  Counts 1, 2 and 3, if memory serves, were for PC 403 misdemeanor disturbance of a public meeting, and counts 4, 5 and 6 were for PC 148(a).  The jury said guilty on all six counts.  However the three PC 148(a) guilty verdicts were overturned on appeal, Judge Elwell presiding. And in time, with the dismissal of MSB-076720 (2004), the DA’s office would concede that refusing to yield the podium after three minutes at a county board of supervisors meeting was not a crime, after all.

Three of the seven criminal cases filed against the candidate do have a correct count 1 listed of PC 403, misdemeanor disturbance of a public meeting.  MVI-101864 (1998) was dismissed at prosecution’s request with jury selection the next order of business. MSB-056349 (2001) was dismissed at prosecution’s request at its first court appearance. And MSB-076720 was also dismissed before trial.

Three more PC 403 public meeting disturbance cases filed against the candidate have been dismissed before trial but were not listed on the county website:  MSB-021747 (1996), MSB-030827 (1997), and MSB-059374 (2001).

Then there are the two listings for MVI-033456 (2002), refusal to leave property not open to the public, and MVI-033561 (2002), violating a court order.  Valid case numbers. Valid sections of the penal code. Both applying to the candidate.  And both dismissed at their first court appearance.

This trespass case involved a family dispute over a ranch in Summit Valley that has been in the candidate’s family since the 1920s. The candidate has a 2 percent ownership interest in this property in the form of 8 of the 385 shares outstanding in the corporation formally owning the ranch property. The only business this corporation has engaged in for the 52 years of its existence is allowing the candidate and his 20 cousins and their families to enjoy a family heritage which their parents enjoyed as children many years ago.

After paying the county $800 for an application to have the mobile home he was living in, sited on the ranch property, recognized as in compliance with the county code, the county added a condition financially impossible for him to meet.  The septic tank for this site, which had been in place since the 1950s, and which had been recognized as safe on the county’s initial inspection, was now deemed to be unsafe unless it was moved approximately 400 feet from its old and previously approved location.  Too near a domestic well upstream which had been in place since the 1950s, and a creek and a pond, the county now said.

In the midst of a family squabble, with the corporate president representing the faction against the candidate’s family members, the corporation, instead of spending the money to bring the site into compliance, chose to spend ten times what that would have cost to force the candidate off the family ranch, spending $11,000 to prosecute an unlawful detainer action to remove him from the 1/2 acre plot on which the mobile home was cited and which was designated by the lawsuit and the United States Postal Service as 14509 State Highway 173 in Summit Valley.

The president of the corporation, presuming the eviction from the 14509 location to apply to the entire 100 acres of ranch property made up of seven contiguous parcels in which the candidate held a 2 percent interest, placed the candidate under citizen’s arrest for entering the ranch property to retrieve personal effects not stored in the 14509 location. The DA filed charges. At the first court appearance, when the candidate pointed out that the unlawful detainer action as issued applied to only the 14509 address, and the crime report listed the trespass as occurring at a 14525 address, also part of the ranch property where the president lived and where the citizen’s arrest was made, the case was dismissed, along with the case alleging breach of a court order.

Had the county website honestly returned a fair and correct list of the criminal cases filed against this candidate since 1996, it would have listed nine criminal cases, seven of which carried a count 1 of PC 403 disturbance of a public meeting, and seven of which were dismissed before trial:

1. MSB-021747 (1996)        PC 403                     Dismissed
2. MSB-030827 (1997)        PC 403                     Dismissed
3. MSB-030952 (1997)        PC 403                     Guilty*
4. MVI-101864 (1998)         PC 403                     Dismissed
5. MSB-059347 (2001)        PC 403                     Dismissed
6. MVI-033456 (2002)         PC M602(N)              Dismissed
7. MVI-033561 (2002)         PC M166(A)(4)           Dismissed
8. MSB-076720 (2004)        PC 403                     Dismissed
9. MSB-079616 (2004)        PC 403                     Guilty**

* With the MSB-076720 dismissal the DA finally conceded this activity of speech was not a crime, after all.

**  This arrest took place ten days after the Sun’s “Prosecutors find no room to crack down on those who violate the three-minute rule”, editorial of September 18, 2004.  At no time during his three minutes did the chair warn him he risked arrest for speaking off point. At the end of his three minutes, the podium speaking light went red, the clerk of the board called “time” and the chair told him to leave the podium because his time was up.  When he refused to yield the podium, with the podium countdown clock reading “0:00” for fifteen seconds, his microphone was turned off.  Minutes later he was arrest. At trial, with the defense not permitted to even speak of a three minute rule, the prosecutor convinced the jury that the defendant disturbed the meeting by speaking off point during his three allotted minutes.  The prosecutor had found a way to crack down on those who violate the three minute rule, after all.  Justice, in the “Wild West of ethics.”

But hey, telling the truth on the county’s website would look too much like the record of a community activist who is a victim of serious prosecutorial abuse.  The truth would have been unpalatable. So “sbcounty.gov” lied. 

Something to keep in mind as you check the Internet on candidates for public office: Dirty politics, San Bernardino County style.

Exclusionary campaign charge
Gaming strategy #4

.A critical communications link between candidates and voters is created by the candidacy statements in the information pamphlet mailed to voters before each election by the county Registrar of Voters.

These candidacy statements form the only guaranteed communication link between the candidates and each voter. And this communication link is open at a critical moment: when voters sit down with their pamphlets to see who is running for each office and mark their choices.

For the candidates without the resources to communicate with each voter using political flyers and campaign posters and media ads, this statement may be the candidate’s only opportunity to speak directly to each voter, an essential part of a meaningful election process.

For the voter who carefully follows political campaigns, there in the candidate’s own words at a critical moment is an executive summation of that candidate’s offering as a county supervisor.

And for the voters who do not follow county politics and are cynical about editorial opines, political reporting and political ads, these candidate statements give a thumbnail sketch of each ballot choice, at this important moment in the election process.

These candidacy statements substantively improve the voter’s ability to make informed choices in casting our ballots, which is why our state legislature provided for inclusion of these statements in the voters pamphlets.

Unfortunately, however, our state legislators also gave each county board of supervisors sufficiently wide discretion regarding these Statements of Candidacy to invite serious abuse.

*  The county board of supervisors decides the length of this candidacy statement, from 200 to 400 words.  --California Election Code Section 13307 (a) (1).

*  The supervisors decide whether or not to levy a charge to the candidate for including their statement in the voter’s pamphlet.  --Section 13307 (4) (e).

*  The supervisors, if they decide to levy such a charge, may arbitrarily decide what the charge will be, with allowed optional costs in calculating the amount including “printing, handling, translating and mailing,” and even “the costs incurred as a result of complying with the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.” --Section 13307 (4) (c).

*  The board of supervisors decides whether the charge should be paid by the candidates at the time of qualifying for the ballot, or at some later date once they have collected campaign contributions. --Section 13307 (4) (c).

*  And the board decides whether or not, on a candidate-by-candidate basis, this pay-in-advance requirement may be waived for a candidate unable to pay the fee at the time of qualifying for the ballot and before collecting campaign contributions.  --Section 13309 (a).

These discretionary powers can be exercised to effectively prevent select candidacy statements from even appearing in the voter’s pamphlet, as happened with the 2004 voter’s pamphlet for the office of First District Supervisor.

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors decided that for the March 2, 2004 First District Supervisor election, there would be a 200 word limit on the candidacy statement, that a charge would be made for this service, that the charge would be $3,352 dollars, and that the charge must be paid in advance. 

The incumbent supervisor, whose name appeared frequently in First District newspapers in previous years, with a record breaking campaign fund, was well known in the First District.  His Statement of Candidacy was included in the information pamphlet mailed to each voter.

The challenger, with light media coverage of the election and his candidacy, and whose name appeared in the media only rarely in years past, as augmented with three one-minute campaign spots and one newspaper ad, the limit of his advertising budget, was relatively unknown to the general public.  And he had no statement of candidacy in the information pamphlet to give the voter unfamiliar with the two ballot choices a clue as to what they might expect from this candidate as their supervisorial representative on the board of supervisors.

After spending $880 to file for the office, representing almost 10 percent of his annual income from Social Security, he had been unable to come up with an additional $3,252, another 35 percent of his annual income, for the candidate statement charge at the time he took out papers.

Even so, the challenger received over 8,000 votes, just over 15 percent of the total cast. Who know how many more votes this unknown challenger would have received had his statement of candidacy appeared in the voter’s pamphlet. Another 35 percent of the votes would have made him the next supervisor.

And while his statement in the voter information pamphlet would not likely have given him another 35 percent of the votes, had there been a third name on the ballot, with that statement he might have received enough votes to force a runoff election in November, giving the remaining challenger better recognition in the community and an opportunity to clarify the voter’s choices.

Statement of Candidacy censorship today

For this coming 2008 election the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, as authorized by the state Election Code, could have decided to allow the maximum 400 words in the candidacy statements for county supervisorial candidates, the equivalent of about a two and a half minute speech.  And that there would be no charge for these candidacy statements.

These two decisions would have maximized the value of these candidacy statements in helping the voters to make informed choices for this very important office.

Or the board could have set the cost for these statements at a modest amount affordable by every candidate. For example, the marginal cost of including one candidacy statement in the voter’s pamphlet, which must be printed, handled, and mailed with or without those extra words.  Or the board could have decided that the charge did not have to be paid in advance by any candidate... or, on a candidate by candidate basis, to waive the requirement that this cost be paid in advance.

What our county supervisors actually decided, however, was to limit the candidacy statements to 200 words, to charge $5,497 for First District Supervisorial Candidate Statements, $6,003 for Third District candidates and $4,000 for 5th District Candidates, and to demand these charges be paid in advance.

The interim incumbent supervisor, with $850,000 in campaign contributions according to the media, paid for a candidacy statement costing less than 7/1000ths of one percent of his available funds.  Likely the other two candidates, Bob Conaway, an attorney and Rita Vogler, a city mayor with a reported $35,000 in campaign contributions left over from her council member race, will also have statements of candidacy.

But for the challenger whose available campaign funds at the deadline for paying this $5,497 fee was $5,347 dollars short, there will be no candidacy payment. Thanks to the gaming of the election process by the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.

To allow some candidates the opportunity to speak in this information pamphlet sent to every voter while denying other candidates the same opportunity is inherently unfair. And when provisions in the Election Code intended to prevent such unfairness are ignored by the board of supervisors, the denial is a pure gaming of the election process.

Our county board of supervisors thinks it reasonable to demand that a candidate whose total income is less than $9,200, after paying the $1,313 filing fee, to pay an additional $5,497 to include his statement of candidacy on the voter’s pamphlet... that it is reasonable to demand that a candidate pay almost 75 percent of his annual income to run for public office including a candidacy statement in the voter’s pamphlet.

Thus, while the voters in this 2008 First District Supervisorial election will have candidacy statements from the other three candidates, the voters will look in vain for this fourth candidate’s statement of candidacy.

The state legislature has provided a simple remedy to avoid such a gross unfairness in the voter’s pamphlet sent to every voter, either charge a fee all candidates could afford or waive the board’s requirement that charges for the candidacy statement be paid in advance, leaving the payment to some future date.

And granting this waiver would provide a real return in value to First District voters in the form of a substantively fairer election, with each candidate having an equal opportunity to present their candidacy to the voters at the critical moment of marking tentative decisions on their sample ballot received from the Registrar of Voters. And not just the three who could afford it.

After all, the election process does not work without individuals willing to stand the rigors of campaigning for public office.  Candidates are an essential element in the election process.  Public officials who take their oath of office seriously should insist on making the election process as open and fair as possible.

A curious thing. As a condition of taking out papers to run for public office in San Bernardino County, the candidate must sign a copy of a document titled “Code of Fair Campaign Practices”, which opens with this paragraph:

“There are basic principles of decency, honest, and fair play which every candidate for public office in the State of California has a moral obligation to observe and uphold, in order that, after vigorously contested, but fairly conducted campaigns, our citizens may exercise their constitutional right to a free and untrammeled choice and the will of the people my be full and clearly expressed on issues.”

And the “Standards of Conduct for Elections and Registration Officials” posted on the county website includes these words: “The success of democratic process requires fair and open elections which accurately reflect the intent of the electorate ... It is our sacred honor to protect and promote public trust and confidence by our conduct of accurate and fair elections ... Our task requires wisdom, courage, and the desire to remain focused on our vision of free and impartial elections.”

These standards also require a personal pledge to freedom and democracy from the Registrar of Voters and her staff which includes these words: “I am accountable for maintaining public confidence in honest and impartial elections.”

How fair was it in the 2004 1st District supervisor election with only the incumbent having a candidacy statement in the voter’s pamphlet?

How fair is it that the voters pamphlet sent out for the June 3, 2008 election will include candidate statements from only three of the four candidates for First District Supervisor?

But in the “Wild West of Ethics”, fair enough.