State Election Enforcement Commission FAIL

The staff at the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) has just told me that they consider the use of this site and other social networking websites, like Facebook, to be campaign expenditures.

For the record, the SEEC staff are completely wrong. They want me to write this, "Paid for by O'Brien for State Representative, Emy Vasquez-Skene, Treasurer. Approved by Tim O'Brien" on this site. However, let's be clear, this site is NOT paid for by O'Brien for State Representative because it costs nothing to use.

On the surface, this might not sound like such a big deal, but the implications of this silly, nit-picky misinterpretation by SEEC could be far reaching.

But first, a bit of background...

Our state's campaign finance law is built around the definitions of two important terms "contribution" and "expenditure". So important are these legal definitions that each of these words is given its own section of the state laws to elaborate on its meaning - section 9-601a for "contribution" and 9-601b for "expenditure". These terms are important because something is only regulated by our state's campaign finance laws if, and only if, that something falls within the definition of either "contribution" or "expenditure" (or both). Some of the campaign finance laws require "paid for by" attributions, some require reporting in legal filings at the SEEC and others tell you what you can and cannot do. But if something does not count as either a "contribution" or a "expenditure", that something is exempt from the campaign finance laws.

There is good reason for this. Campaign finance laws are designed to prevent the corruption or perceived corruption of elected government through large campaign contributions or expenditures. The idea is that elected officials maybe are, but certainly could be perceived to be, in the pockets of someone who donated or spent a lot of money to get them elected. Thus, campaign finance laws regulate money spent in campaigns - and they are not supposed to regulate anything else. So giving money or something of value to a campaign is supporting a campaign financially and it may count as a "contribution", and spending money or using something of value by or on behalf a campaign is also supporting a campaign financially and may count as an "expenditure".

By the way, in the legal justification for campaign finance laws, the word large is important. Small amounts of money do not affect election outcomes and, in any case, the Supreme Court in Buckley vs. Valeo clearly pointed out that it was large amounts of campaign money that justified campaign funding regulations. Plus, campaign finance laws, like all laws, are not meant to apply to small, nit-picky things. That is why there is a general legal precept called de minimis, which means something that is "so small or minimal in difference that it does not matter or the law does not take it into consideration."

Now, let us look at how the new world of free internet services fit into this...

Free internet services have blossomed in recent years. Free internet services are just that, free for anyone to use. The companies that run them offer their various services free for users for their own business reasons, including advertising, but for people who create accounts at and use these services, there is no cost.

This blog exists on such a free internet service, called Blogger. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and many other social networking sites are free internet services or offer a free version of their service, like the one I use for my site "Tim O'Brien's Online Community" and my campaign website. Even web mail services such as GMail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail are free internet sites, as well, because they cost users nothing to send and receive e-mail through them.

Now, let us take the case of someone (even a candidate for office) who uses a free internet service - say, Facebook - to express their opinion about who should be elected. Because this person is not charged any money by Facebook for using their services, this user is not expending any money and therefore their use of Facebook does not count under section 9-601b as an "expenditure". Even though Facebook does spend money maintaining their service, Facebook is only deemed to be making a "contribution" if the amount they charge the user to use their services is less than what they would charge anyone else. Since the amount Facebook charges anyone is $0, the $0 charged to the person expressing their point of view about the elections is no discount, and therefore their use of Facebook also does not count as a "contribution" under section 9-601a.

Since this person's use of Facebook is neither an expenditure nor a contribution, the use of Facebook by anyone, including candidates for office, is not regulated under our state's campaign finance laws.

The SEEC staff counter that the use of free internet services for the expression of political opinions are still regulated under campaign finance laws because, to access these websites, you still have to the use of your home computer  and internet service, which both cost money. But they are still dead wrong on this account, too. The state laws, in subsections 9-601a(b)(5) and 9-601b(b)(6) explicitly exempt "[t]he use of real or personal property ... voluntarily provided by an individual to a candidate or on behalf of a state central or town committee, in rendering voluntary personal services for candidate or party-related activities at the individual's residence...". So, any use of your own computer in your own home is exempt from the campaign finance laws - including accessing Facebook. So again, SEEC is wrong.

Even if the exemptions in subsections 9-601a(b)(5) and 9-601b(b)(6) did not apply, how much, really, of an expense can the use of your home computer to use Facebook really be? Pennies? Fractions of pennies? Plus, you would have had your computer and internet service anyway, so there is no increase in cost to you because you used your home computer to access Facebook. In either case, the precept of de minimis - that these "costs", even if they do exist, are too small to think about - clearly applies, and Elections Enforcement should have the common sense not to apply the entirety of the regulations in our election laws to things that have nothing to do with the kind of large expenditures that are the whole purpose of our campaign finance laws in the first place.

The problems with this mis-interpretation of law are many...

Perhaps the SEEC's goal is simply to require that all websites operated by candidates and their campaigns to have a "Paid for by..." statement. But it is both incorrect and silly to require candidates to say that their campaigns "paid for" something that they did not, in fact, pay for. And the bigger problem is that, if SEEC considers a website with a "paid for by" statement for one candidate to be that one of that candidate's campaign websites, then then it would be illegal to use that website to support any other candidate without that candidate's campaign paying a pro-rated share of the cost.

So, for example, if I put on my Facebook profile, "Paid for by O'Brien for State Representative, Emy Vasquez-Skene, Treasurer. Approved by Tim O'Brien", that Facebook profile might be considered a website for my campaign committee. If I then subsequently write a "wall post" on my profile that asks people to vote for my favorite candidate for governor, SEEC staff actually told me that I would have to put the "paid for by" attribution for that candidate on my Facebook profile. But what about the pro-rated share of the cost? And what cost? $0.0001?

I also asked SEEC staff how this rule would affect people who are not candidates for office - the general public. Their answer is that using free internet services like Facebook to advocate in favor of or against a candidate would count as small "independent expenditures" - meaning that SEEC still was suggesting that private individuals would be making regulated campaign expenditures under the laws just by using their Facebook accounts. They did suggest that these might count as very small "independent expenditures" that would not require attribution and legal reporting, but using this "independent expenditure" exemption places the burden on the private individual using their Facebook (or other social networking) account to prove that they had no connection with the candidate they were speaking in favor of. Otherwise, they would still have to put the "paid for by" statement for the candidate they wrote in favor of on their Facebook profile. SEEC staff did say that they did not think that this attribution rule should apply to campaign volunteers but could not give a good reason why, since they interpreted that the use of social networking sites counted as campaign expenditures and there is nothing in the definition of "expenditure" that treats expenditures by candidates differently from expenditures by anyone else.

Then there is Twitter. Twitter "tweets" can only be 140 characters long, not words, characters. My "paid for by" attribution statement is 96 characters long, even without punctuation. That leaves only 44 characters for me to actually say anything. Here is a little experiment to see how far 44 character goes: "Let's see how much I can write before I use ". And that is it, 44 characters. Is this really what SEEC wants to do? Really?

There is good reason why free internet services, and social networking sites like Facebook, should be exempt from campaign finance law. If the interpretation the SEEC means to apply here stands, unnecessary rules and regulations could make it harder or even impossible for everyday people to use the great promise that the internet offers for democracy. For the past several decades, the high costs of mass media - mainly television - have made expressing political opinions too costly for the average person to afford. But the internet offers the promise of free communication that can, at least in part, replace the expensive communication that can only be afforded by the wealthy and large corporations.

The laws of our state do, in fact, exempt the use of these free internet services from regulation. And that is a good thing that should be defended. If it is not, it is foreseeable that private individuals will have to ply through red tape, file reports and post "paid for by" notices when all they want to do is write their opinions on the internet on a site that does not charge them for doing it.

In conclusion...

The good and orderly application of the laws of the state require that we have a State Elections Enforcement Commission that exercises common sense in applying the laws. The election laws are written to give SEEC a lot of discretion so that they can exercise common sense in making sure that the real purpose of campaign finance law is fulfilled. That purpose, again, being to prevent the adverse impact of large amounts of private money in the political process, NOT to nit-pick infinitesimally small or non-existent amounts of money so that they can get their hooks into regulating people's free speech (the kind that actually is free).

This matter is just one example of how our SEEC has been choosing cumbersome nit-picking beyond their legal charge instead of exercising the common sense that is in their charge. SEEC has had propensity to not think through how their interpretations and mis-interpretations of our state's election laws can make it cumbersome for people to express their opinions and participate in the political process - all too often making our laws harmful rather than helpful to democracy by making it harder for everyday people to participate than for people with a lot of money at their disposal.

It does not have to be this way. The State Elections Enforcement Commission does an admirable job in many ways.  I implore them to take a step back, think about the implications of the way they do things, and bring a little more common sense to the job.

By the way, this message, though I am not legally required to say so, is, in fact, approved by Tim O'Brien. But it is not paid for by O'Brien for State Representative, Emy Vasquez-Skene, Treasurer.

With new surplus, state should provide additional funding for urban schools.

The budget decisions of the past two years have been very difficult. In order to close the multi-billion-dollar state budget deficit, I and other legislators cut billions of dollars from the budget - difficult cuts that reduced funding for important services I care about in our state. Even with these cuts, we worked hard to ensure that important public services were maintained.

One of the things that was not cut was state aid for local schools. This is one of the largest items in the state budget, so even modest increases in state aid costs a lot in the state budget. Gov. Rell had produced tens of millions in cuts in state aid - which would have meant large education cuts - so preventing these cuts was a victory that has kept the difficulty of local budgeting from being that much worse.

But, even this year, with massive budge cuts going on, I still fought for changes in education funding that would have increased support for local school districts and, especially for cities like New Britain, avoided the difficulties they presently face. Even though other state legislators, this past year, were reluctant to make the significant changes that I was proposing, the ideas I put forward are worth pursuing when our state has a new governor.

After all these massive budget cuts, it was refreshing to read, today, that State Comptroller Nancy Wyman announced that our work to cut the budget and some rebounding in the economy have resulted in a state budget surplus that has risen to $242.9 million. I certainly would agree that this does not change caution and discipline we need to maintain balance in the state budget, since there are still deficits projected for future years.

However, local school budgets are badly hurting right now - and things are especially harsh in New Britain, where years of neglect by City Hall left the local schools under already tenuous conditions even in the good times. This neglect has made a situation that, in these difficult times, is stressful for many communities an absolute disaster in New Britain.

New Britain City Hall has a responsibility, now, to act to ameliorate the larger class sizes that are the result if its years of neglect, and whatever is done on the state level to make things easier does not relieve New Britain City Hall of that responsibility. However, with the growing state surplus for the year just ending, I would like, once again, to open up the question of what the state might be able to do to help.

That is why I am proposing that the state take a small amount of this past year's budget surplus to increase the Priority School District grant that would help schools in communities like New Britain.

I know that some politicians in our state might respond to my call by saying something like, "There goes a Democrat, wanting to spend again as soon as there's a dime of surplus." But, I would challenge anyone inclined to say that to look at the situation in the New Britain schools. Granted, the City of New Britain could have, should have and still can do more, but - as I have always advocated - as much funding as the state can provide helps maintain the quality of education in New Britain schools.

While the real education funding victory these past two years was, indeed, shielding state Educational Cost Sharing grant funding from cuts, I will not give up in advocating for an increase - especially when it can make such a difference here and now.

I hope that my colleagues in the legislature will give strong consideration to returning to special session to take up my proposal.

Why the Wall Street crowd wants to blame you for the recession.

In the midst of the financial meltdown that roiled through 2008, I noticed a message starting to percolate out through the media blaming average, everyday Americans for the problems of the economy. This struck me, because, up until around then, going back generations, the message from these same sources had been very different.

Everyday Americans were told to aspire to the American dream of homeownership - that this was the hallmark of responsible citizenship and within reach for just about everyone. Average Americans were told that they, in the "ownership economy" could expect to "own" a stake in corporate wealth through their 401(k)'s and other investments - and that these were not just a better substitute for a regular pension, but could make for a well-to-do retirement for anyone. And, in general, everyday Americans were told that there was no reason whosoever to question the proposition that every generation in our nation would continue to live better than their parents.

Then, the 2008 meltdown and recession happened. Almost immediately, we started to hear the message change.  Now, average, everyday Americans are being told that the reason for our nation's economic problems are that average, everyday Americans have been living beyond their means.

The message about the American dream of homeownership turned into the new mantra: "Homeownership is not right for everyone," we now hear from Wall Street and media pundits. And those speakers for Wall Street elites have replaced their talk of unending prosperity and lavish retirements with discussions of how American consumers got themselves into trouble by borrowing too much, resulting in the present day of reckoning. Replacing the former exuberance about the limitless growth of our Wall Street-run economy is a now a sober lecture about how we all must learn to make due with less.

But is everyone truly making due with less? The middle class and poor sure are:

The recession has hit middle-income and poor families hardest, widening the economic gap between the richest and poorest Americans as rippling job layoffs ravaged household budgets. (source: MSNBC)

But to the richest, the recession was just a different opportunity to make money:

...last year's wealth wasteland has become a billionaire bonanza. Most of the richest people on the planet have seen their fortunes soar in the past year.

This year the World's Billionaires have an average net worth of $3.5 billion, up $500 million in 12 months. (source: MSNBC)

So while the already hurting middle class and poor are asked to make sacrifices in their own lives, little attention is being paid to the growing wealth of the richest and the growing inequality between them and everyone else.

It is not bad luck that that there is such growing inequality between the wealthy Wall Street elite class, whose wealth has been growing, and most everyone else, whose incomes are hurting and who are now being asked to make all of the sacrifices in a shrinking U.S. economy. This is the result of policies that were intentionally designed to result in this outcome.

You do not have to be an economist to figure out what has been happening. Almost everyone I have spoken to in the city and town I represent about this has wondered how it is that we can have a successful economy in the long term when we are exporting so very much of our manufacturing base.  How long, we have asked, can we have decent jobs for everyone when so much of what we buy at the store is manufactured in low-wage places?

That is why so many of us have been questioning the economic policies of our country - Wall Street behavior and government "free trade" laws that have combined to send jobs to the nations (and states) willing to subject their workers, consumers and environment to worse conditions. We questioned why it would be a good idea to have policies that undercut human living standards for no reason other than corporate profit.

But, when everyday Americans have brought this up over the past few decades, our concerns have been brushed-off. We were told that it does not matter that so much of our manufacturing jobs were being exported to low-wage countries (or, often, low-wage places in our country) because every good-paying manufacturing job lost would inherently be replaced with a better paying job doing something else. The U.S., we were told, was to become the brain center of a new "information age" economy in which everyday people would be able to shed their dirty factory jobs in favor of clean office jobs. It was a vision in which the U.S., and American workers, would "mature" to become the governing elite of the world economy, leaving the hard, grunt work to the developing world.

Another thing we were told is that we were not, in fact, giving up our manufacturing base. It was just that our industry was becoming more efficient - more productive. We had turned a corner, technologically, in which we could genuinely produce more for less. And so, we were told, the lost factory jobs in places like New Britain were not so much attributable to exporting jobs to low-wage places, but rather to their replacement with more efficient forms of production that require fewer workers.

And, we were told, those who questioned the exporting of jobs were just chicken-little Luddites - the evidence being that things were going just fine. The office jobs that we were promised seemed to be appearing, and it looked like we really were at the head of a new economy in which all Americans could be both the brains of the world economy and - through our 401(k)'s, etc. - its owners. Many people were - and many still are - persuaded that the Wall Street elites had us on the right track.

Of course, the assurances we received came undone when the mess of derivatives and the debt of our economy all came crashing down in 2008.

The real truth is that, in fact, you cannot have an economy when too little of your manufacturing is done by middle class workers in your own state and country. The real truth is also that the only reasons it looked, for a while, like what the Wall Street elites were telling us was working was, first, because they created a fictional economy floated on exotic investment instruments that made it appear that what people's 401(k)'s, etc., were invested in were real, even though they were not and, second, by creating a massive system of debt in which our country imported a middle class lifestyle by borrowing from other countries. All of this covered-up the weakness of the economy that existed because so much of our manufacturing employment had been exported.

But this is not something we hear so much, perhaps because saying it betrays an inconvenient truth about our economy.  The truth is that, for the past four decades, the elites on Wall Street - and the politicians in Washington D.C. who have done their bidding - have been trading away our economic strength for their own profit.

Back in the post World War II era, the moment when our nation was at its zenith of economic strength among the world's nations, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, around a full quarter of the value added by our economy was in manufacturing.  This statistic, "value added," is important because it shows how much of what is produced by our economy (the Gross Domestic Product) is accounted for by value created by the different sectors of our economy. And so it is important that to know that, when we were truly strong economically, a full quarter of the value added of our economy - and the largest share of it - was in manufacturing. In 1953, 28.3% of our nation's value-added was in manufacturing.

But, that number started to shrink in the late 1960's and, by 2008, it has dropped to 11.5% of our economy.

Taking its place as the leading portion of the value-added of our economy was the sector lead by financial services.  That sector went from 10.4% of our economic value added in 1947 to 20% in 2008.  In other words, moving money and ownership around became a bigger part of the size of our economy than actually making things.

In addition to outright disproving any notion that the newer, high-tech manufacturing produces the same value to our economy as the "old" manufacturing did, the change from a real economy to a paper one shows us why it is that the recession we are now in is the recession that changes everything.  It is the recession that finally exposed the fraud Wall Street has been perpetrating on the American people.

That is why it is troubling that we have not heard much talk about this truth. Instead, what we mainly hear is that the recession is mostly the fault of everyday Americans - everyday Americans who dreamed the American dream of homeownership, everyday Americans who worked hard for paychecks that could lift their families into the middle class, everyday Americans who wanted health care for their families and college for their children, everyday Americans who wanted security in retirement and to pass on to their adult children and grandchildren a better life than they had. It is everyday Americans who seem to be taking the bulk of the blame - and are therefore told it is fair that they be asked to tighten their belts.

And, while you, everyday Americans, tighten your own family budgets, you are told that you should also expect to receive fewer public services, with cutbacks such as in education, higher tuition at college, fewer services for seniors and less help while unemployed during the recession. You also are asked to blame your neighbors whose jobs are to provide these services because they, too, strive to lift their families into the middle class.

All of this conveniently diverts attention from the real cause of our economic woes - a system in which wealthy elites have been profiting by undercutting the middle class incomes of everyday Americans. It is a system that has been going on for four decades and finally came to its ugly fruition in 2008. Now you, everyday Americans, who did what you were told was the way to a respectable middle-class life, are being asked to accept the blame - and bear the burden - in place of the elites who are actually at fault.

There is a lot of work that has to be done to rebuild a strong and prosperous economy for ourselves and younger generations. But getting there requires that we confront the real causes of our present troubles and extricate ourselves from the bad systems that got us into this situation in the first place.

I am an optimist enough to believe that we can.