Show Jerry the Money

It's no longer C-Note Brown:

A year after Jerry Brown was elected mayor of Oakland, San Francisco publisher Phil Bronstein introduced him at a luncheon of the American Society of Newspaper Editors as a politician who was trying to get big money out of politics.

...“In ‘92 he ran for president again, beating Bill Clinton in six state primaries, and was the only other candidate to make it all the way to the convention. In those races, as in his run for mayor of Oakland last year, he refused contributions over $100.”

....the Sacramento Bee quoted Brown as saying. “I’m the guy who limits my contributions to $100. I’m definitely concerned about the political process and how it’s become profoundly distorted by money.”

Running in the November general election for California attorney general, these distortions no longer seem to bother Jerry Brown. ....

An analysis reveals that in the two months between June 10 and Aug. 10, Brown collected $658,000 in contributions of $5,000 or more. Of those, 55 came from individuals contributing between $5,000 and the legal individual limit of $5,600 to Brown’s attorney general campaign. In the same period, Brown’s Republican opponent collected $167,525 in contributions of $5,000 or more.

....The analysis shows that Brown’s financial support is broad-based, with large contributions coming from unions, corporate interests, law enforcement associations and law corporations, and casino interests, as well as individuals. ... Brown received $5,600 apiece from Oakpac, the Oakland political fund that promotes business interests, and the Los Angeles County Council on Political Education, an AFL-CIO-based fund which said its purpose was “promoting working families issues” in its filing papers with the state as a political action committee.

Brown’s single largest interest group support in the last two months was from unions, from which he took in $192,300, the largest coming from labor organizations connected with the building trades industry. Brown has led a residential building boom in Oakland during his two terms as mayor, a policy that has benefited building trades unions.