Proposition 4 drives PAC money out of campaigns

October 6, 2026

Stew Jenkins

OPINION by STEW JENKINS

Would you pay $1 per election to blunt the political influence of Elon Musk and George Soros? Proposition 4 will end a prohibition on public campaign financing plans that can effectively drive corporation and political action committee (PAC) money out of election campaigns?

The same U.S. Supreme Court that unleashed unlimited “independent” campaign spending by corporations and political action committees in the Citizens United ruling also upheld as constitutional public campaign finance programs for candidates that the states of Maine and Arizona have each adopted. Both States adopted different features to publicly fund cleaner elections.

The charter cities of  San Francisco and Los Angeles have each adopted and successfully administered several other model plans for public financing of political campaigns in California. General law cities and counties cannot legally adopt public financing in California.

Seattle, Wash. has implemented a model for publicly financing local campaigns that differs markedly from Maine or Arizona, but which has freed citizens and candidates from the oppression of PAC money controlling campaigns.

What you ask is the cost? Depending on the type of program, the cost amounts to between $1 to $6 per person each election. Good value for protecting the democratic process from robber barons and lobbyists.

Proposition 4 would remove the ban on public finance so that additional cities, and counties, and even the state could develop competing models for public campaign funding that would make the dependence of candidates on corporations and lobbyists for donations obsolete.

Competition!  With all its benefits.

Prop. 4 lets different parts of California try out the different models so the best combination of features can be put together to assure campaigns with integrity are opened up to candidates based on their character, principals and vision, without regard to status as an incumbent, a particular party member, or as a member of the “silver spoon” club. Clean public campaign financing would change politics for the better in California.

The experience of the former Republican Arizona State Senate leader Randy Pullen is instructive. I observed him at a hearing a few years ago talking about how as leader of the State Senate he had received a bill for Arizona’s Citizen’s Clean Elections Act every session, and hid it in his desk drawer to assure it never got a vote.

But Arizona voters passed the Citizen’s Clean Elections Act in 1998 over his and all the moneyed interests objections. Pullen bit the bullet to volunteer to participate in clean public financing for his campaign. He was surprised.

Arizona’s Citizens Clean Elections Act freed him from dialing for dollars, freed him from the big money interests that always knocked on his door asking for something in return for their large donations.

More importantly, he said, Arizona’s Clean Elections Act gave him the time and freedom to meet and learn from voters about their needs at town halls, church picnics, birthday gatherings, city council meetings, bar-b-ques, bar mitzvahs, quinceañeras, construction sites and union halls.

Let’s strike a blow against graft and corruption this year, and for clean elections in California, by voting yes on Proposition 4 to let Californians cleanse our state of corporate PAC money.

Stew Jenkins is an attorney who has provided counsel and representation in San Luis Obispo since 1978. He was the Democratic Party nominee for State Assembly in 2004, served for nine years as Port San Luis Harbor Commissioner, has been appointed repeatedly as Superior Court Special Master. Jenkins is the host of SLO COUNTY PUBLIC POLICY & THE LAW, on K-NEWS, FM 98.5.