California’s transportation agency frequently coordinated with a public relations firm working to block the repeal of a contentious gas tax Democrats signed into law in 2017, the Associated Press reported Monday night.
The California State Transportation Agency and Sacramento-based Bicker, Castillo & Fairbanks organized press conferences to promote legislation raising the tax to fund infrastructure improvements.
They continued planning events as gas tax opponents began gathering signatures for repeal. Republicans are campaigning to nix the tax.
Much of the communications between BCF and Caltrans involved politics, according to more than 200 emails from 2017 the AP obtained through the California Public Records Act.
One of the memos shows BCF communicating with the agency about efforts to support Proposition 69, a June ballot measure involving how the gas tax is spent.
BCF partner Kathy Fairbanks, for instance, discussed the layout for a campaign logo in January pushing the ballot measure.
The agency and firm are still planning to coordinate efforts for several months through the primary, a trove of undated memos show.
Ethics experts argue the coordinated campaign efforts cross a clear line.
“Clearly the agency was trying to coordinate with the campaign, and they shouldn’t have,” Bob Stern, a government ethics expert who helped write California’s campaign laws, told AP reporters.
Another expert took her criticism one step further. Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor and government ethics expert, said the relationship between the firm and agency appears too close. “I mean way over the line,” she said.
Agency officials argue the campaign is important to help citizens understand the tax increase.
It’s the agency’s job to inform the public about the impact of laws, and it has done so in the past, Melissa Figueroa, the agency’s deputy secretary for communications and strategic planning, told reporters. “We’re trying to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Figueroa said.
The law, passed April 6, 2017, imposes a 12 cents per gallon (CPG) hike on citizens and raises the tax on diesel fuel by 20 CPG.
It also implements an additional charge to annual vehicle license fees ranging from $25 to $175 depending on the car’s value. Californians have some experience with similar measures.
A similar gas tax increase helped bring down former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003 after he signed legislation dramatically increasing the vehicle license fee.
No one clamored to recall Brown, but Los Angeles Republicans collected enough signatures to force the recall of state Sen. Josh Newman, a Democrat many consider the point-man for the effort.
Another BCF partner, Brandon Castillo, told reporters that the coalition became a ballot measure campaign in March to support Proposition 69. He sent an email about op-eds focused on GOP candidates on Sept. 20, 2017.
“Hey Melissa — We’re penning opeds (sic) targeting the following congressional republicans,” Castillo wrote at the time, identifying identified Reps. Jeff Denham and Steve King, among others, and asked Figueroa for information about projects the gas tax increase is helping to fund.
Read more at Daily Caller
Lets just call it Moonbeams Hot Air Gas Tax because Moonbeam Brown is a big old liberal democratic windbag
🤦♂️I knew where you were going & what you are saying is somewhat common sense BUT your conclusions have been inputted into SOCIETY by THE UNITED NATIONs to SOCIALLY ENGINEER our thoughts, wants & needs to make us more compliant with the UN GLOBAL ELITIST NEW WORLD ORDER. This has been in the making since the end of WW2, UN CLIMATE SUMMIT tried to reach CONSENSUS in 1972 but mostly failed so had 1992 CLIMATE SUMMIT and achieved CONSENSUS by 192 countries! This allowed UN REPROGRAMMING of education & media to SOCIALLY ENGINEER us & unknowingly destroy ourselves to the INDOCTRINATION of the UN. Ask yourselves why U ask no questions & believe everything I see & read on TV & in the new papers. If we want to try other sources of information that all say the same thing, is it not obvious the sources are the same ONE.? But our minds are busy with the 24/7/365 UN propaganda that is always dramatic intentionally to keep us unthinking. Unthinking as the UN creates our fears of made up terrorists to manipulate our hate, fear of their bogus global warming as climate change is just the mundane reality of the Earth climate cycles from the suns solar flares & sun spots. To the rotation of the earth wobble & axis slightly altered from earthquakes & volcanic eruptions. As small as the earth is compared to the sun do you logically believe that 7.5 billion humans have drastic influence on it? As far as our nuclear energy waste, nuclear testing & bombing with half-life of THOUSANDS OF YEARS it is a miracle the GLOBAL ELITE haven’t destroyed this earth all by their DIABOLICAL selves. NO THANKS TO THE UN FEW EVEN SPEAK OF SOVEREIGNTY ANY MORE as we are being pushed into a cashless society EASIER TO CONTROL & DESTROY! 🤪
It isn’t just unethical for a public agency to campaign on a ballot issue, it is also illegal. However, California is a den of thieves so who is going to prosecute them?
The good news is Brown is leaving . Unfortunately likely to be replaced by someone
who wants no borders and will bankrupt the state when the music stops .
The golden state has turned to poo . Venafornia North .
Oh well those Al Gore rising seas will wash it away anyways.
Moonbeam Brown is a total idiot reelecting this jerk was a big big mistake and hopefuly his stupider clone Newsome wont be replacing him