Gatto, M rep

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OVERTURNING THE SUPREME COURT'S DECISION

Time for Democrats to abandon Citizens United myth

By Mike Gatto

My fellow Democratic politicians like to campaign on overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which allowed corporations to spend unlimited sums advocating for candidates.

Presidential hopefuls Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have made it a campaign platform.

I used to be fully on board.

In 2014, I introduced landmark legislation to initiate an obscure procedure states can use to force Congress to change the Constitution. In retrospect, I was wrong.

During the debate of my measure, someone emailed me a Yale Law Review article by professor Michael McConnell of Stanford University. It was thorough and well-researched, so good that it made me reconsider my opinion.

In essence, McConnell wrote that Citizens United could indeed have been wrongly decided. Money is not speech, and corporations are not people. However, he continued, Citizens United must stay on the books because there is no way to draft a law overturning it without violating another First Amendment principle: The Press Clause.

An example: You’re reading this op-ed in a newspaper.

This newspaper and other media outlets, like CNN and Fox News, are corporations. Media outlets take positions daily that praise or criticize candidates.

Indeed, this paper endorses candidates and asks that readers vote for or against them.

And, of course, its parent corporation can spend unlimited corporate funds to publish and circulate. Take away that ability and you’ve destroyed the free press.

Many readers probably feel defensive now. Inevitably this topic triggers a five-step grieving process, which starts with denial. “Yes, but I hate those flyers special-interest groups mail during election season.

Those are not newspapers!”

Correct. Not currently.

But if we prohibited everyone except newspapers from using corporate funds to advocate for candidates, specialinterest groups would just rebrand their flyers as newspapers. Try writing a law that prohibits those but allows your neighborhood paper — which is also small, free and delivered to your door — to editorialize for a candidate.

Inevitably some wise guy next says, “OK, let’s just define what is a bona fide media outlet, and ban others from advocacy.” That wouldn’t work either. Whereas this paper has existed a long time, most of us can remember when now-mainstream media outlets like The Daily Wire were plucky upstarts. Moreover, neighborhood and niche newspapers have small circulations but are important voices.

So you couldn’t define “bona fide” without banning startups or those with limited viewership from advocating for candidates. If the point of overturning Citizens United is to defeat plutocracy, you’d have just entrenched it further by limiting the rights of everyone but mainstream media.

Many now start realizing the magnitude of the challenge. But some continue: “We know certain outlets are in the business of providing news, not just during campaign season. Let’s prohibit corporations from political advocacy if they’re not in the year-round news business.” But that would just create a de facto blackout period on new press ventures and occasional magazine commentaries.

And remember: Even if you succeeded in getting these laws passed, the uber-rich would just start buying up media outlets. Oh wait — they already have.

At this point, all but the most stubborn acknowledge that corporate money swaying public opinion is here to stay.

But some still insist they could draft a workable law, focusing on intent: “We’ll continue to allow corporations to weigh in on issues, but we’ll prohibit them from expending resources with the purpose of swaying an election.”

Oh great, I reply. Do you want to live in a country where someone can take a documentarian like Michael Moore to court, to examine his motives for creating a film?

Do you want to live in a country where a court can decide whether Vogue’s latest profile of Michelle Obama was designed to sway the electorate?

I don’t. That would chill free speech like nothing we’ve everseen.

As much as we Democrats hate to admit it, Citizens United is here to stay. Misleading the public is disingenuous and demagogic. It’s time to stop.

Democrat Mike Gatto of Los Angeles is an attorney who served four terms in the California Assembly.

mojo

...

Irrigation water appears to be a major loophole in a food safety program that otherwise strictly controls what farmers can apply to their land. Notably, the organics program does prohibit the use of sewage sludge-based fertilizer, a product widely used on nonorganic farms that sometimes contains chemicals such as flame retardants and pharmaceuticals.

On Monday, California Assemblyman Mike Gatto, a Democrat from Glendale, introduced a bill that would require crops irrigated with wastewater from oil and gas operations to be labeled as such. "No one expects their lettuce to contain heavy chemicals from fracking wastewater," he explained in a press release.

That's especially true if their lettuce is labeled "organic," adds Adam Scow, the California director of the environmental group Food and Water Watch: "I think most people's logic would tell them that's not a practice consistent with organic standards."

AB-14 Food labeling: wastewater from oil and gas field activities. (2015-2016)

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520162AB14

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http://ecowatch.com/2016/02/10/farmers-irrigate-crops-oil-water/

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Michael Anthony "Mike" Gatto (born October 19, 1974)^[2] is an American elected official. In June 2010, after a series of three elections in eight weeks, the voters of California's 43rd State Assembly district elected him to the California State Assembly.

Data analyses of the voting records conducted by the Sacramento Bee newspaper concluded that Gatto is among the most independent Assemblymembers, and that he hasn't missed a vote in years.^[3][4]

Contents

• 1 Early Life, Education, and Previous Career
• 2 Elections to the Assembly
• 3 Legislative Career
• 4 Analyses and awards
• 5 Personal Life
• 6 References
• 7 External links

Early Life, Education, and Previous Career

Gatto grew up in the Franklin Hills and Silver Lake neighborhoods of Los Angeles.^{[citation needed]} His father was a public-school teacher, his grandfather an immigrant coal miner.^{[citation needed]}

Gatto earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1996^[2][5] and a J.D. from Loyola Law School in 2004.^[2][5]

He worked as an aide to Congressman Brad Sherman^[6] for five years,^[7] during and after law school.^{[citation needed]} As an attorney, he worked first at O'Melveny & Myers and later at Mayer Brown; his practice focused on representingsmall- and medium-sized businesses to resolve issues with the government.^{[citation needed]} Gatto also served in the administrations of three different mayors of Los Angeles and as President of the El Pueblo (Los Angeles Historical Monument Authority) Commission.^{[citation needed]}

Elections to the Assembly

In January 2010, after Paul Krekorian resigned to take a seat on the Los Angeles City Council, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger scheduled a special election for April 13.^[7] Gatto finished atop a field of four.^[7] During the election, Gatto secured the endorsement of the Los Angeles Daily News, which wrote that Gatto was "fiscally minded and intelligent... the kind of legislator California needs."^[8]

On June 8, 2010, Gatto won both the runoff election against a Republican for the unexpired term, and a primary against Democrats for the full term.^[6] In November 2010, Gatto prevailed with 65.9% of the vote.^[9]

In November 2012, Gatto won reelection with 60.2% of the vote.^[10] In November 2014, Gatto won reelection with 67% of the vote.^[10]

The 43rd Assembly District includes Burbank, Glendale, La Crescenta, La Canada Flintridge, and the Los Angeles communities of Atwater Village, Franklin Hills, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, the Hollywood Hills, and half of Hollywood.

Legislative Career

In 2010, Gatto introduced legislation to reduce municipal pension costs. His bill sought to cap the exposure of well-managed cities when less frugal (or corrupt) municipalities offered top officials large salaries. Gatto was moved to introduce this legislation by the 2010 City of Bell salary controversy, where cities like Glendale had to underwrite approximately $411,000 in annual pension costs for Bell's former police chief.^[11]

In October 2010, Gatto authored ACA 4, an enhanced version of a Rainy Day Fund (or "savings account") for the State of California. The constitutional amendment required the legislature, during years of strong revenues, to follow a strict program limiting expenditures. First, the state would have to fulfill all obligations to education, then deposit up to 10% of general fund revenues into a savings account, to be used during years of weak revenue. After that, the state would be mandated to pay down bond debt. Gatto's Rainy Day Fund legislation passed both houses of the legislature and was approved by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.^[12]

In the 2011-2012 session, Gatto served as Assistant Speaker Pro Tempore of the California Assembly.^[13][14]

One of Gatto's bills in 2011 would have required the state to study embedding piezoelectric sensors in state highways, which produce electrical energy by the vibrations vehicles make as they traverse the pavement.^[15]

Gatto authored the California Homemade Food Act to allow small startup businesses to produce certain food products without the regulations for large commercial operators applying to them.^[16] The Act was noted by KCRA as being beneficial to small businesspeople in the food-production sector.^[17]Forbes Magazine stated the measure "created over a thousand local businesses."^[18]

In August 2012, Gatto was appointed chair of the assembly's Appropriations Committee.^[14] He served until December 2014.

In September 2012, Gatto introduced a bill requiring the California DMV to establish the California Legacy License Plate Program, bringing back exact replicas of black license plates issued in California in the 1960s.^[19][20]

Gatto's 2013 legislation included a bill to forbid cities from writing tickets to motorists who park at broken parking meters that a city has failed to repair.^[21] He also authored legislation which would give small businesses a safe harbor for correcting deficiencies in Proposition 65 warnings without being subject to financial penalties and lawsuits, the first substantive Prop. 65 reform ever.^[22] Gatto also authored legislation to help catch and punish hit-and-run drivers, and to make better use of carpool lanes during off-peak hours.^[23]

In mid-2013, Gatto pushed for an audit of the Child Protective Services departments in the state of California, based on the concern that they were not spotting child abuse fast enough.^[24]

In 2014, Gatto introduced legislation to force Congress to address campaign-finance reform.^[25] He introduced a number of measures to address hit-and-run crashes.^[26] Gatto also introduced measures to curb child abuse at elementary schools,^[27] and to address the problem of sexual assaults on college campuses.^[28] And Gatto was the author of significant legislation to keep production jobs in California.^[29]

Two measures of Gatto's in 2014 were novel for government. One was a "Wiki-bill", using a Wikipedia-like platform to allow the public to draft legislation in the open.^[30] The other was a "Government X-Prize, whereby members of the public could win awards for providing the government with intellectual property (patents or plans) to make government processes more efficient.^[31]

Gatto was the lead Los Angeles negotiator for the California Water Bond of 2014, securing just under a billion dollars for the Los Angeles region to clean up polluted groundwater reservoirs, which were still full despite the California drought, so that the region did not need to import so much water from elsewhere.^[32]

In 2015, Gatto introduced legislation to restrict the ability of government to store indefinitely the blood and DNA of newborn children and to crack down on government selling the blood to for-profit researchers for experimentation without the knowledge of parents.^[33] He teamed up with Kerri Kasem, daughter of Casey Kasem, to author a bill allowing adult children of seniors to easily obtain visitation rights for their loved ones.^[34]

Also in 2015, Gatto authored a major probate reform bill that allows homeowners to pass their property to loved ones without hiring a lawyer, paying to create a trust, or facing the cost and bureaucracy of probate. Of this bill, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association said, "Other than Proposition 13, there is no greater bill that we support for this year." ^[35]

In December 2015, Gatto was named Chairman of the Utilities and Commerce Committee, and immediately announced an investigation into the Aliso Canyon gas leak.^[36]

Analyses and awards

Gatto has one of the best attendance records in legislature, and one of the longest streaks of not missing a vote for any legislator nationwide.^[37][38] For example, in the 2013-2014 session, Gatto had the only perfect attendance record in the California legislature, not missing one of the Assembly's 5,897 votes.^[39]

In 2013, Mike Gatto earned the Robert F. Kennedy Leadership Award from the San Fernando Valley Young Democrats.^[40]

In 2012, a data analysis conducted by the Sacramento Bee newspaper on voting records concluded that Mike Gatto was the second-most independent democratic legislator in the California State Assembly.^[3] Subsequent analyses by the same newspaper have confirmed the same.^[41]

Personal Life

Gatto is married to Danielle Gatto.^[2][5] They have two young daughters.^[42][43]

On November 12, 2013, Gatto's father, Joseph Gatto was murdered in a home-invasion robbery at his home in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California, at the age of 78.^[44][45] The crime is unsolved.

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https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_49,_Amendment_to_Overturn_Citizens_United_Ruling_Question_%282014%29

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AJR 1

On June 27, 2014, Assembly Joint Resolution 1 (AJR 1) was chaptered by the California Secretary of State after passing the California Legislature. Essentially, the resolution calls for a federal constitutional convention for the purpose of proposing an amendment to the United States Constitution. The amendment, according to the legislative council's digest, would "limit corporate personhood for purposes of campaign finance and political speech and would further declare that money does not constitute speech and may be legislatively limited."^[7] The resolution received support from Consumer Watchdog, CALPIRG, California Clean Money Campaign, California State Grange and Wolf-PAC.^[8] Rep. **Mike Gatto** (D-43) stated, "I doubt our founding fathers had the free-speech rights of multinational and foreign corporations in mind when they drafted the First Amendment."^[9]

A federal constitutional convention hasn't been held since the first one in 1787. Along with California, 33 other states would need to issue similar resolutions to effectively call for a convention

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We applaud Chairman Mike Gatto, who has demonstrated his own independent leadership in calling for a constitutional convention, recognizing that applying pressure in that collateral way is also one of the most powerful ways to get Congress itself to bite the bullet.

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CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2013–2014 REGULAR SESSION

An act to submit an advisory question to the voters relating to campaign finance, calling an election, to take effect immediately.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SB 1272, as amended, Lieu. Campaign finance: advisory election.

This bill would call a special election to be consolidated with the November 4, 2014, statewide general election. The bill would require the Secretary of State to submit to the voters at the November 4, 2014, consolidated election an advisory question asking whether the Congress of the United States should propose, and the California Legislature should ratify, an amendment or amendments to the United States Constitution to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) 558 U.S. 310, and other applicable judicial precedents, as specified. The bill would require the Secretary of State to communicate the results of this election to the Congress of the United States.

This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an act calling an election.

DIGEST KEY

Vote: majority   Appropriation: no   Fiscal Committee: yes   Local Program: no  

BILL TEXT

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1.

 This act shall be known and may be cited as the Overturn Citizens United Act.

SEC. 2.

 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights are intended to protect the rights of individual human beings.

(b) Corporations are not mentioned in the United States Constitution and the people have never granted constitutional rights to corporations, nor have we decreed that corporations have authority that exceeds the authority of “We the People.”

(c) In Connecticut General Life Insurance Company v. Johnson (1938) 303 U.S. 77, United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black stated in his dissent, “I do not believe the word ‘person’ in the Fourteenth Amendment includes corporations.”

(d) In Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) 494 U.S. 652, the United States Supreme Court recognized the threat to a republican form of government posed by “the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas.”

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vs CA CoC

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(July 2, 2014) Legislation mandating consultation with Native American tribes as part of the environmental regulatory process passed a Senate committee last week.

The Senate Environmental Quality Committee reviewed and recommended on June 25 a number of amendments toAB 52 ​(Gatto; D-Los Angeles) for the author's consideration.

The California Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of business groups continue to opposeAB 52 as a "job killer" because it increases the potential for litigation related to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

The "job killer" status of the bill will be evaluated when the amendments suggested by the committee appear in print.

AB 52 as currently written creates more opportunities for litigation and substantially increases project cost and delay by creating mandatory consultation requirements with Native American Tribes and by requiring lead agencies to analyze a project's impacts to an entirely new resource area called Tribal Cultural Resources.

The CalChamber and coalition argued that AB 52 will create a disincentive to invest in land, whether to build affordable housing, schools and universities, or construct needed infrastructure such as renewal energy projects, or roads and highways.

Staff Contact: Anthony Samson

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