By Mark Gutglueck
In a move represented as “relating to campaign finance reform,” a four-fifths majority of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday substantially raised the previous limit on campaign contributions they are subject to.
Simultaneously, the ordinance the supervisors approved that codified those increased limits contained a provision that created an oversight commission to monitor the provision of campaign money to the county’s top political figures. In doing so, however, the supervisors set a standard for the selection of those commissioners that ensured the commission is to be stacked with appointees by the politicians who are the recipients of the massive donations to be allowed under the new limits.
San Bernardino County’s governmental structure at its top level consists of its five supervisors elected by voters within five disparate districts that are geographically distinct from one another, the county sheriff elected at-large, the district attorney elected at-large, the county assessor elected at-large and the county treasurer elected at large. Those nine politicians for multiple decades have been subject to recurrent and persistent accusations of a pay-to-play ethos, one in which donors of substantial amounts of money to those officials’ political war chests receive, in both general and specific terms, treatment by the myriad branches of county government that is more favorable than is accorded to those who are not as generous in monetarily supporting the electoral efforts of those elected officials.
This has, occasionally, spilled over into scandal in which some elected officeholders have been prosecuted, some convicted, some removed from office and some voted out of office. Others have remained virtually unscathed by the free flow of money around them that is traded for votes and governmental action, and they have been returned to office again and again, even as the reputation of the county has been damaged and its moral authority compromised as a consequence of the mistrust and cynicism engendered in the public at large.
Over the years, there have been stabs taken at reform that consisted of adopting or even intensifying for local application elements of the California Political Reform Act of 1974, as when the board of supervisors passed in 2012 a campaign finance reform ordinance that first went into effect on January 1, 2013 and which was revised in 2014, or the county’s reaction to Assembly Bill 571, passed in 2020 and in effect since 2021, which placed a cap on campaign contributions for state politicians and imposed those limits on county and municipal elected officials unless specific counties or cities opted to adopt their own limits. In reaction to Assembly Bill 571, San Bernardino County had agreed to adopt as its own the limits outlined in that legislation, which at that time was $4,770 per donor per candidate per year but which with annual inflation adjustment allowances has now grown to $5,500.
It was that limitation that Supervisor Paul Cook, who represents the county’s First District, took aim at when he sponsored the amendments to the county’s campaign finance reform ordinance that was considered by his colleagues and voted upon on Tuesday, August 20. What he was shooting for, Cook claimed, was transparency and accountability. He emphasized that element of the proposed ordinance redraft which called for the creation of a nine-member panel, the San Bernardino County Campaign Accountability Commission, to be nominated by each of the county’s highest-ranking elected officials and which would ensure compliance with the county rules regulating county politicians.
The new version of the county’s campaign finance reform ordinance, Cook maintained, would create a watchdog entity to oversee how money is spent to get the county’s politicians elected, which is something county residents have been demanding.
“This is something that I think that’s extremely important,” Cook said. “Believe it or not, a lot of the feedback we get here, a lot of it is about this one issue. This ordinance will increase transparency and accountability in local elections by establishing a nine-member accountability commission. This commission will oversee campaign spending, swiftly investigate violations within a year and enforce reasonable contribution limits for county races. It also establishes reasonable contribution limits for county races that are designed to shift campaign spending away from secretive campaigns, providing the voters with a clearer information and candidate’s financial backers. By leveling the playing field and ensuring timely resolution of campaign finance issues, this ordinance will create a fairer electoral process that empowers San Bernardino County voters to make more informed choices at the ballot box. This is something that I really want to support. So, obviously, I’m in support of this item and I think it’ll go a long ways for helping us with transparency.”
Other than his reference to “reasonable contribution limits,” Cook did not make explicit mention of the raising of the donation limit on individual donors from $5,500 to $10,000, nor of the increase on the amount of money a political party can make to a candidate from $5,500 to $100,000, an increase of more than 1,818 percent. Cook ignored entirely that the version of the ordinance he sponsored does away with that provision of the ordinance in place since 2013 that criminalized proven violations of the ordinance, eliminating the possibility that those who fail to comply would be subject to jail time or hit with a hefty fine. Excised from the ordinance was this language: “Any person who knowingly or willfully violates any provision of this chapter, who purposely causes any other person to violate any provision of this chapter, or who aids and abets any other person in the violation of any provision of this chapter is guilty of a misdemeanor.” Also eliminated from the ordinance was that language in the original 2013 ordinance which imposed fines large enough to have a deterrent effect. The following sentence from the 2013 ordinance was taken out of the 2024 redraft: “In addition to any other penalties provided by this chapter or the County Code or law, a fine of up to the three times the amount the person failed to report properly or unlawfully contributed, expended, gave, or received, or $10,000.00, whichever is greater, may be imposed upon conviction for each violation.”
Beyond eliminating the criminal implication of violations contained in the 2013 ordinance, the 2024 ordinance weakens the sting of being convicted of a civil breach of the ordinance, reducing the administrative monetary penalty for a violation from $5,000 to $1,000. Moreover, the revamped ordinance introduced by Cook reduces the timeframe under which an administrative action for a violation can be brought from five years to 12 months.
Additionally, the new ordinance allows an individual donor to provide a county politician with up to $20,000 in an election year if the candidate does not achieve outright victory in the primary election, held in March of presidential election years and June of gubernatorial election years, but qualifies in the March or June contest to compete in a runoff held in the November election.
“If a candidate does not receive more than 50% of the vote in the primary election and the candidate’s name will appear on the ballot in the general election, the contribution limits contained in subsection (a) are doubled for that year,” the 2024 version of the ordinance states.
Before the board voted on the measure, Supervisor Joe Baca Jr weighed in on the ordinance change. Baca registered no problem with all of the provisions to be put in place with the new version of the ordinance but one. As the board’s lone Democrat, he expressed dismay at the way in which the new version of the ordinance offers political parties an opportunity to participate in backing candidates by contributing $100,000 per year to each candidate and conceivably as much as $200,000 per year to a single candidate in an election year if a victor does not emerge in the primary election.
Historically in San Bernardino County, the Republican Party has been far more active in fundraising and campaign activity than Democrats, not only in state legislative and Congressional races, which under California law are recognized as partisan, but local races, including those for county office, municipal office, school district boards, water district boards and fire district boards, all of which state law characterizes as nonpartisan. In the instant case of the board of supervisors, the Republican Party, in the form of the San Bernardino County Republican Party and both political action committees and independent expenditure committees controlled by Republicans, have contributed heavily to incumbents Supervisor Cook, Supervisor and Board Chairwoman Dawn Rowe, Supervisor Curt Hagman and Supervisor Jesse Armendarez.
Baca sought to minimize the degree to which governance in the county had already been politicized along partisan lines in expressing his opposition to the ordinance, while expressing his belief that it would politicize the process of ruling the county.
“I understand the logic for bringing this and bringing in a commission for oversight, but for me personally, one of the things I like about this office is it’s nonpartisan,” Baca said. “I like the fact that I can work with my colleagues and we don’t deal with party politics, you know, what’s going on nationally, what’s going on in state politics. I like the fact that we can move and get things done and, you know, we don’t care about affiliation here. We just move the business of the county forward. There’s just one section I just will not support. I’m in support of all of these, except for one section, Section 12.4305, which allows political parties to give a certain amount for donations. I just don’t believe that should be a part of, you know, our giving. We’ve kind of stayed out of that. I don’t believe party politics should play into county politics, even though they can indirectly. We all understand that. I cannot vote for this item, you know, with that section being [contained in the ordinance]. If that was stricken, I would be glad to vote for it, but as is, I will not be voting for this item.”
The alterations to the county’s campaign finance reform ordinance as proposed by Cook were passed by a vote of 4-to-1, with Baca dissenting.
While Cook along with Rowe, Hagman and Armendarez made references to calls by members of the public for reform of the rules relating to political financing and further refinement of the already existing rules relating to campaign donations, their conception of reform, which manifested in the raising of the limits on the amount of money donors can contribute, was out of step with the predominate number of calls for reform in recent years advocating the tightening of restrictions on political contributions and lowering the amount of money individual donors are allowed to make as part of an effort to reduce influence peddling in local politics and eradicate the pay-to-play atmosphere within county government.
The massive amounts of money that Cook, Armendarez, Rowe and Hagman have collected in terms of political donations in relation to the far more modest contributions received by their opponents have led to them having a virtual lock on the offices they hold, the perception that their political campaigns are so well-financed that it is impossible for anyone running against them to get elected.
For his 2020 campaign for supervisor, Cook, who at that time was a member of Congress and had previously been a member of the California Assembly, was able to expend $426,564.26 based on $442,077.73 in donations to his electioneering fund. This year, in the county election held in conjunction with the March 2024 Presidential Primary, Cook spent $154,192.73 in his reelection effort, offset by $132,858.78 in donations prior to the conclusion of the campaign and money left over from his previous campaigns along with money that has come in since his reelection in March.
Rowe, who in 2018 had been appointed to the board of supervisors and therefore ran as an incumbent in 2020, collected $311,913.36 throughout 2019 and 2020, which covered roughly eleven out of every twelve dollars of the $336,595.96 she spent on her campaign. She backfilled that deficit with $19,199 in donations that came in shortly after the campaign and has made up the rest with subsequent contributions.
In 2024 Rowe spent $492,113.57 on her successful reelection effort that concluded in March. She covered the bills for that campaign from the $499,899.60 in donations she received over the last three years.
In his successful 2022 campaign, Supervisor Jesse Armendarez collected $900,107.40 from contributors, which enabled him to spend $911,039.90 in convincing voters to choose him. He covered the slightly less than $11,000 difference using loans he personally made to his campaign.
In his 2018 reelection campaign, Curt Hagman tapped his donors for $508,318.30 to run his campaign, which cost $445,830.96 to conduct. For his 2022 contest, the generosity of his political supporters gave him $936,538.40 to work with and he utilized $834,369.88 during his successful campaign.
In 2018 Hagman faced a relatively well financed opponent in former Congresswoman/State Senator/Assemblywoman Gloria Negrete-McLeod, who had $179,243.09 in funding. In 2022, he was challenged by then-incumbent State Senator Connie Levya, whose political war chest contained $522,112.02. In 2022, Armendarez was opposed by Luis Cetina, who was able to collect from his donors $396,048.36 with which to wage that year’s campaign. In all of their races, Rowe and Cook faced opponents who were able to raise only a fraction of the money they had. In none of those cases did any of their opponents raise as much as 9 percent of what either did.
Race after race for San Bernardino County’s elected positions have been decided in favor of the candidate with the most money to spend on his or her campaign. This has been equally true in cases involving the board of supervisors as with the office of sheriff, district attorney and assessor and it has generally been true of those of the county treasurer.
In 1954, Frank Bland was elected sheriff when he challenged the one-term incumbent Eugene Mueller. With that election, Bland formed a political machine that ensured his reelection in 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974 and 1978. Bland endorsed his successor, Floyd Tidwell, in the 1982 election and the Bland political machine, with its legions of supporters and donors, was consigned to assist Tidwell. Tidwell thereafter took command of the Bland political machine and used it to effectuate his reelection in 1986 and then endorsed his undersheriff, Dick Williams, in the 1990 election, which Williams won handily with the monetary support of the donors that had been handed down to him from Tidwell. Williams opted to retire in 1994, at which point he endorsed Tidwell’s choice to carry on the Bland tradition, Gary Penrod. Penrod used the money generated by the roster of hundreds of donors cultivated by Bland, Tidwell and Williams before him to win election in 1994 and reelection in 1998, 2002 and 2006. In 2009, Penrod resigned, recommending that the board of supervisors appoint then-Assistant Sheriff Rod Hoops. The board of supervisors complied with Penrod’s wish. Hoops then used the political machine handed down to him by Penrod to get himself elected in 2010. In 2012, Hoops chose to retire, recommending that the board of supervisors appoint John McMahon, who was then assistant sheriff. The board complied and the Bland machine sustained McMahon in the 2014 race, when he faced two challengers. That victory was so convincing that no one ran against McMahon in 2018. In 2021, having accumulated sufficient time as a public employee to max out his pension, McMahon resigned, suggesting that the board of supervisors replace him with his undersheriff, Shannon Dicus. The board did so and in the 2022 election, Dicus, employing the still-extant Bland political machine, trounced his opponent. It is currently anticipated that in 2025 Dicus will retire, recommending to the board of supervisors as he does so that its members appoint his undersheriff, Rick Bessinger, as his replacement. The Bland political machine, comprised of hundreds of willing donors, represents a wellspring of up to several million dollars that can be brought to bear to maintain the establishment within the sheriff’s department, one which has existed for going on four generations, remains in place.
The current district attorney, Jason Anderson, was elected in 2018 in his maiden run for that office, having honed his political skills in the early 2000s as a member of the Ontario City Council. To overcome the once-entrenched incumbent district attorney, Mike Ramos, with whom a substantial number of the county’s most reliable and deep-pocketed political contributors had become disenchanted, Anderson and his supporters quietly laid the groundwork for his run without foretelling what was to come by waiting until he filed his candidate intention statement on February 2, 2018 before letting the world at large in on the existence of his candidacy, thus lulling Ramos, who thought he might have no opponent that year after he had been elected and reelected four times previously, into a state of complacency. Anderson did not begin collecting money for the June 5 primary election until March 5 of that year. In that compressed three-month time span, donors to Anderson turned out en masse, providing him with $196,561.99 to run his campaign, on which was spent $259,055.70. Augmenting the campaign directly in favor of Anderson was $12,930.04 spent by one group formed by his supporters called Business Leaders for Fair & Ethical Government to Support Anderson & Oppose Ramos for D.A. and another $10,400 spent by the Inland Empire Taxpayers Association on a blitz of attack mailers, newspaper advertisements and handbills targeting Ramos.
Anderson’s vanquishing of the previously unbeatable Ramos was so convincing that in 2022, no opponent for him materialized.
In 2006, Bill Postmus, who was then the chairman of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors and the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, declared his candidacy for county assessor, the county’s highest taxing authority, challenging incumbent Donald Williamson. With two other challengers in the contest, which consequently resulted in no candidate getting a majority of the vote in the June primary, the race was extended into a head-to-head runoff between Postmus and Willamson that November. In the course of the late spring and fall races, the Postmus-Williamson clash became the most expensive campaign in county history, with some $2.4 million expended on all forms of electioneering, including $1.3 million that was raised and spent by Postmus in promoting himself, along with almost $700,000 spent by political action committees Postmus or his political associates otherwise controlled and independent expenditure committees he ostensibly did not control, which carried out attacks on Williamson. Despite having been outspent roughly seven-to-one, Williamson yet managed to poll 47 percent of the ballots cast to Postmus’s 52.62 percent, with 0.38 percent going to write-in candidates.
In short order, Postmus settled in to the assessor’s role, creating a second assistant assessor’s position. He hired 11 of his political associates, none of whom had any experience in appraising real estate or assessing value for taxing purposes, into the office’s 13 highest-ranking posts, including both assistant assessor assignments. During what would prove to be his abbreviated tenure as assessor, the assessor’s office became a hotbed of political activity, with campaigns for Republican causes and candidates being carried out from the county’s facilities housing the assessor’s office and using its phones, equipment and computers. Simultaneously, Postmus moved to cut breaks for his political donors and their businesses, using his authority as assessor to reduce the tax they were paying on their property holdings or the factories, foundries, facilities, offices, stores or shops from which their business operations were run, providing them annual returns of tens of thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars and in some cases approaching a million dollars on the investments they had made in his political career in the form of campaign donations in the thousand dollar, $5,000 and $10,000 range.
In Postmus, the pay-to-play ethos that pervaded San Bernardino County had never been so grossly and clearly illustrated. In 2008, after some of his political appointments had engaged in activity that became public, Postmus himself would see his political career implode in scandal. Ultimately, as a result, he was forced to resign as assessor and over the course of 2009 and 2010 was criminally charged with 14 separate felony charges relating to corruption in office, including criminal conspiracy, soliciting a bribe, accepting a bribe as a public official, engaging in a conflict of interest as a public official, misappropriation of public funds, receiving a bribe in an official capacity, embezzlement by a public official, donation reporting violations, fraud and perjury. In 2011, Postmus pleaded guilty to all 14 counts against him.
The difficulties with the county treasurer and the advantages accruing to the holder of that office in terms of being able to raise substantial amounts of money for use in the campaigns for that position that occur every four years have not been as pronounced as with members of the board of supervisors, the sheriff, district attorney and assessor in recent years, though in 1990s, San Bernardino County did sustain a blow to its reputation when the then-entrenched treasure, Thomas O’Donnell, who had been able to remain in office from 1987 until 1998 at least as a partial consequence of his fundraising reach, was indicted by a federal grand jury for his involvement with his office’s investment advisor, Sol Levin, and two of the county’s top administrators who were in place during his run as county treasurer, James Hlawek and Harry Mays, in a series of kickback schemes, including one in which in return for for bribes and all expenses paid excursions to Costa Rica, Greece, France and Florida, they provided Salomon Smith Barney and the New England Adjustable Rate Government Fund with contracts to invest more than $7.5 billion in public funds in financial instruments from which money was creatively spun off to brokers, resulting in an estimated loss or diversion of at least $20 million in taxpayer money over a six-year period.
Over time, Bland’s ability to remain in office for 28 years and control, literally from the grave, who it is to succeed him decades later in the sheriff’s position he held onto for so long by virtue of the fundraising machine he constructed has struck many San Bernardino County residents as an unhealthy abridgement of the democratic political process. The consideration that individuals such as Postmus and O’Donnell were able to fashion for themselves such a grip on the offices they held by virtue of the insurmountable lead in funds they enjoyed compared to their opponents that they could be removed from office only by the action of prosecutors acting outside the political process has sparked among many the belief that San Bernardino County is in desperate need of reform in the arena of fundraising by elected officials. The hard reality is that those elected officials, because they hold positions of power and decision-making within the local governmental structure which has tremendous sway in terms of permitting, regulating and approving applications for land use and development along with control over what individuals or companies will be granted franchises or contracts for the delivery of goods or services to governmental entities, are treated to the generosity of those landowners, real estate speculators, developers, franchise applicants or entrepreneurs doing business with the government. The politicians then utilize the political donations provided by those who have an interest in the outcome of the governmental decision-making process to purchase billboard space, yard signs, radio spots, television ads, handbills and mailers to promote their reelection campaigns. The upshot is that once in office, because of this lock he or she has on fundraising mechanisms, a politician in San Bernardino County is virtually impossible to dislodge. This perception that observant members of the public have of a one-side political process which is controlled by money has been a leading factor in the repeated calls for reform. Still, it is the politicians who are themselves the primary beneficiaries of an unbridled system of political donations who have the authority to reform the political fundraising process.
Cook’s reform proposal, which he attempted to suggest would eliminate the built-in advantage incumbent politicians have in raising money, upon examination did not live up to the promise of attenuating that advantage but rather perpetuates, or indeed magnifies, it.
Cook, himself, seemed to acknowledge at one point during his presentation of the proposed ordinance change that what he was offering was reform in name only and that actually, it was furthering the advantage that politicians such as himself already hold over their challengers.
At 81 years old, Cook’s mental acuity fades in and out. He can sustain for a time focusing and remaining on task, which is what he did for most of his presentation on Tuesday, August 20 during the board meeting. On occasion, however, he will veer from what in many cases has been scripted for him to expressing elements of his internal monologue, which sometimes deviates from the goal he is ostensibly pursuing. On a few notable occasions during such interludes he has revealed that his private opinion or size-up of a situation is different from the public stance he is taking. Such a demonstration occurred at Tuesday’s meeting, when he momentarily slipped and admitted the reform package he was sponsoring didn’t live up to its billing.
In reference to the need for campaign finance reform, Cook said, “It just seems that so many people out there feel that the races are not fair and anything else. I actually don’t like the word transparency. I do like the word open, the fact that people can see what’s going on. If there are certain words in there that don’t provide that guidance, I think the public is genuinely concerned and think, ‘Oh, here are politicians trying to hoodwink us again.’”
