The attention of most voters may be riveted on the vicious contest for president between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but it is worth remembering the famous words of former Speaker of the House Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill that all politics is local. And, in the local politics of Los Angeles, the L.A. Times has uncovered disturbing evidence that suggests real estate developers may be getting favored treatment from city officials to whom they have made significant campaign donations.
The story by David Zahniser and Emily Alpert Reyes detailed the way members of the City Council and Mayor Eric Garcetti bypassed the negative recommendations of the city planning department and the Planning Commission and approved a $72-million residential development in an area north of the Port of Los Angeles that is zoned for industrial use. The developer who successfully pushed to have the zoning and planning guidelines waived is Samuel Leung. The Times investigation tied Leung to more than 100 individuals who collectively donated more than $600,000 to the campaigns of local politicians, including the mayor and City Council members.
Much of that money appears to have come from people of very modest means with negligible connections to politics. When interviewed by Times reporters, several could not say to whom they gave contributions and others did not remember giving money at all. These included a repairman from El Salvador in whose name $20,300 was donated to local candidates since 2008.
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la-1491523602-y7ephyarj1-snap-image (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Trump inspires millions to take to the streets -- to oppose him. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Cartoon caption contest winner at the DENT conference in Sun Valley, Idaho: Jon Duval, executive director of the Ketchum Community Development Corporation. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Old radicals and big media descend on Selma (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Horsey imagined the creation of the Ann Coulter phenomenon in this cartoon from 2007. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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This David Horsey drawing is a reconfiguration of a cartoon he first published in 2006. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Donald Sterling, owner of the L.A. Clippers, should give Cliven Bundy a call. After Sterling loses his NBA franchise and the deadbeat Nevada rancher loses his cattle, the two old racists will both need a buddy. Maybe they can team up together and open an all-white rodeo. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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Besides sending a chill up the spine of the international community, Vladimir Putin has accomplished one other thing by seizing Crimea and threatening the rest of Ukraine: Putin has brought back the bear. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
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The right-wing insurrection at the Bundy ranch in Bunkerville, Nev., has taken another weird turn with new revelations about the family history of Cliven Bundy. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)
Leung got his development approved, but he could be in legal trouble if it is found he improperly used third parties to pass donations to politicians.
According to the Times report, “The fundraising effort is a case study in the myriad ways money can flow to City Hall when developers seek changes to local planning rules. The pattern of donations from unlikely sources, some of whom profess to have no knowledge of contributions made in their name, suggests an effort to bypass campaign finance laws designed to make political giving transparent to the public.”
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Money has been the prime source of corruption in politics since governments were first created. In Los Angeles, the situation is far better now than in the early decades of the 20th century when public officials could be bought outright by private interests working both inside and outside the law. There is a big difference between a bribe and a campaign contribution. But there is still one thing that even perfectly legal campaign cash can buy: access. Access buys influence and influence often leads to rules being bent and the donor getting what he is looking for.
If developers in L.A. are getting more access and influence than they deserve, and if the interests of the public are being undermined, it does not matter whether it is legal or not. It is still not right.
Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist David Horsey is a former political commentator for the Los Angeles Times. Syndicated by Tribune Media Services, David’s work has appeared in hundreds of media outlets. After graduating from the University of Washington, Horsey entered journalism as a political reporter. His multifaceted career has taken him to national political party conventions, presidential primaries, the Olympic Games, the Super Bowl, assignments in Europe, Japan and Mexico, and two extended stints working at the Hearst Newspapers Washington Bureau. As a Rotary Foundation scholar, Horsey earned an M.A. in international relations from the University of Kent at Canterbury, England. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate from Seattle University. Horsey has published eight books of cartoons, including his two most recent, “Draw Quick, Shoot Straight” (2007) and “Refuge of Scoundrels” (2013). For escape, he spends a few weeks each year working as a cowboy in Montana.