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Measure T's Corporate Ban Succeeds

Daniel Mintz, Arcata Eye
June 13, 2006

Measure T, the hotly-argued voter proposition that bans election spending by outside corporations, is now county law.

The provocative voter initiative won 54 percent of the June 6 vote, and unless it’s successfully challenged in court, it will block the kind of corporate political involvement that provoked its emergence.

Motivated by the massively-funded 1999 and 2003 ballot initiative campaigns by Wal-Mart and the Pacific Lumber Company, Measure T effects the spending ban but also includes content that readies it for promised court challenges. Voters approved the ban as well as a set of “legislative findings” on the negative effect of corporate electioneering that the Supreme Court has asked for as justification.

A “very happy but not very surprised” Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, the manager of the Measure T campaign, said that she’s gotten phone calls and e-mails from people across the country who want to launch similar campaigns in their communities. “The county should be proud and celebrate this victory,” she continued. “People from all over the country are proud of what we’ve done and want to emulate it – this will have huge ramifications and people should be really happy about that.”

Some aren’t, and Chris Crawford is one of them. The manager of the No on T campaign, he’d aggressively criticized the measure, saying that it’s unfair and badly-written. Crawford said he has no plans to orchestrate legal action against it but he expects the campaign arguments will soon be carried into courtrooms. “If an ordinance is passed that has serious constitutional flaws, it should come as no surprise that there’d be a lawsuit challenging it,” he said.

Sopoci-Belknap said that if a lawsuit does surface, pro bono legal representation in support of the measure is likely because there are many attorneys who strongly support its goals.

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