Oil, tobacco firms become big winners in CA election
Dec 4, 2006, 17:20
|
|
Oil and tobacco firms which spent most money became big winners in the California election on Nov. 7, according to figures published on Thursday. The oil industry spent 95 million dollars to beat back Proposition 87, which would have imposed a new extraction tax of up to 485 million dollars a year, while proponents of the measure spent 57 million dollars, the Los Angeles Times said. The paper said, "Money didn't just talk in Tuesday's election. It screamed." "The year's biggest spenders - and biggest winners - were the oil and tobacco industries," said the report. "In almost every contest, candidates and issues with the most money trumped the side with less, even if the losers raised bags full." Contributors spent a record sum on California campaigns in 2006,more than 600 million dollars, breaking the previous record of about 500 million in 1998. But final numbers won't be known until January. By comparison, the cost of this year's campaigns nationwide is expected to be 2.6 billion dollars, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Ed Bender, executive director of the Institute on Money in State Politics in Helena, Mont., predicts that once the money is calculated sometime next year, all state campaigns nationwide will have cost about 2.4 billion dollars. "California cements its position as a state that is very different from any other," Bender said. "It has a lot of character, a lot of flair and a lot of money." "The money spent is obnoxious. It is bad," said Scott Macdonald,spokesman for the anti-Proposition 87 campaign. "No one says 150 million dollars spent on a proposition is money well spent. But our people spent the money because they were under attack." Proposition 86, which would have added a 2.60-dollar-tax to a pack of cigarettes, was the second-costliest initiative in 2006. Tobacco firms spent 66.6 million dollars to defeat the proposition, much more than any other year, while backers raised 14 million dollars, according to the report. "This is their biggest market, and they were going to fight with everything they had," Jim Knox of the American Cancer Society of California, a champion of the tobacco tax, said in response to the tobacco firms. Other propositions, which favor a record of 37 billion dollars in borrowing to reinforce levees, widen freeways, build classrooms and improve other public works, cost roughly 35 million dollars, according to the report. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger raised and spent roughly 42 million dollars this year, while his opponent state Treasurer Phil Angelides spent less than 10 million. But the precise amount Angelides spent won't be known until January.
© Copyright 2006 by DiscountCigarettesBox.Com
Top of Page
|
Bond Cigarettes
