In the wake of a weekend order from the state’s Supreme Court, California’s campaign finance watchdog said Monday that it soon expects to reveal the names of donors behind an Arizona non-profit’s $11 million donation to ballot initiative efforts in the Golden State.
Ann Ravel, chairwoman of California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, said she expects to receive the names of Americans For Responsible Leadership’s donors at 8 a.m. Pacific time, according to The Sacramento Bee. From the newspaper:
Americans for Responsible Leadership agreed to turn over the names without submitting transaction records as the group faced a Sunday demand for information from the California Supreme Court. The FPPC asked the state’s high court to force ARL to submit documents that would help determine whether the group violated campaign disclosure rules.
“The voters of California have achieved an important right to know who is funding politics in our state,” Ravel said in an e-mail. “The hard work and persistence of the FPPC for transparency will not stop.”
Americans for Responsible Leadership, run by an unlikely collection of Arizona Republicans, had indicated Sunday that it would ask the Supreme Court to block the California order. But that request was withdrawn Monday.
The FPPC has been seeking records from Americans for Responsible Leadership to make sure that the group complied with state disclosure laws when it contributed $11 million in October to a California group called the Small Business Action Committee PAC (SBAC). The SBAC is opposing California’s Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax-hike initiative, and supporting Proposition 32, which would prohibit labor unions’ from raising political money from payroll deductions.
