Firefighters spent thousands to keep Stracener off bench
By Joe Ortiz, Sacramento Bee
Among the hundreds of campaign expenses incurred by the state firefighters’ union political action committees this year, two relatively small line items reflect a grudge the organization has held for years.
The California Department of Forestry Firefighters Small Contributor PAC made 147 contributions to state and local candidate campaigns in 2012. It also made two independent expenditures totaling $10,500 to oppose Curt Stracener’s bid to keep his El Dorado County Superior Court judgeship.
Before former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed him to the bench in 2010, Stracener worked as a senior litigator for the administration who helped shape furlough strategy.
When Stracener ran to retain his seat, the firefighters countered with a campaign tying him to Schwarzenegger with a website picturing the two men together over a caption, “Two of a kind.”.
Stracener won re-election in the conservative county.
Stracener’s race accounted for a tiny fraction of the $1.39 million the 3,700-member union spent through its two PACs. Some $821,000 went to campaigns and $267,000 went to independent expenditures, according to disclosure documents filed by the organization. Much of the money went into opposing Proposition 32, the failed ballot measure that would have ended payroll-deducted funding of political activities.
About 10 cents of every dollar, some $123,000, paid for “staff/spouse travel, lodging and meals.”
The right wing attacks on public employee associations notwithstanding, most of the associations have the primary purpose of serving the public good by defending the professionalism of their members against the partisan and often dishonest politicians who see them as vote getting targets.
Does anyone in South Lake Tahoe seriously believe that the local politicians, who largely represent their own business interests as well as those of their supporters, do a better job of representing public interests than the public employees who have dedicated their entire careers to representing the public, for substantially less pay than the politicians or their donors?
The next time you need a cop or a fire fighter, be sure to remind them how over compensated they are.
We appreciate our cops and firemen. We really do.
But should they be able to retire at age 53 with over 100K annually paid by the taxpayers? While at the same time, our legislators are trying to make carpenters and laborers keep busting their backs till they’re 70 to get the social security checks they’ve been paying for since most of them were teens?
The system is broke. We the people are broke. Most people work hard and try to do their jobs with pride. But those who take advantage ruin it for everyone.
Dogula +1
Remember it’s for the children not early retirement!