California law limits the
campaign contributions a Governor may accept to $22,300 from any single
donor. A recent court ruling, however, said that Arnold can blow
through those limits as long as the money goes to a political committee
that is not for his re-election bid. And this week, Arnold demonstrated
how severely that ruling fails California voters and his promise to
clean up Sacramento. The Gov accepted a single contribution of
$1,000,000 from former DHL executive (and Idaho resident) William
Robinson into the bank account known as "Governor Schwarzenegger’s
California Recovery Team."
Since this is officially an account for running Arnold TV-ads about
ballot measures — and not Arnold TV-ads about his re-election bid —
the contribution is considered "lawful." Drop the "L," because it’s
awful. It’s Arnold playing accounting games to skirt the campaign
finance laws enacted by California voters at the ballot.
In other news, the Sacramento Bee is reporting that Arnold will set up
a new Office of the Inspector General to go after potential scandals
within the Governor’s administration. So long as the IG is actually
independent, ArnoldWatch is all for it. In fact, we’ve made a list for
the new IG to start looking into… Click here to read the list.
