#kencooley

Haaland’s opponent has released radio ads touting Mr. Cooley’s dedication to public safety and protecting kids from child abusers and sex offenders, but does it really tell the whole story? Let’s look at the true record of Mr. Cooley and see if any of his claims stand up.

According to the ad, Mr. Cooley authored legislation aimed at “cracking down on sex offenders and other criminals who prey on kids,” but did he really?

Assembly Bill 883 is the only bill relative to his claim and it was VETOED by Governor Brown who stated in his veto message:

“It doesn't provide the criteria or funding necessary for counties to participate or for the Department of Social Services to conduct this pilot program. It may also duplicate efforts that have just gotten underway with the passage of this year's budget to combat and reduce the growing problem of commercial sexual exploitation of children.”

So the Governor thought it was a duplication of efforts and hence vetoed the bill. Can Mr. Cooley really tout his expertise or leadership on this issue in a radio ad? Furthermore, the radio ad states his advocacy for human trafficking issues in the State Legislations, yet his bill does nothing to combat human trafficking.

More troubling, the Governor issued a press release just last month touting the seven bills signed into law dealing with human trafficking legislation and NOT ONE of those bills signed into law were introduced or carried by Mr. Cooley.

Let’s also take a look at his record on public safety issues in general. Mr. Cooley VOTED to LESSON penalties on drug dealers (SB 1010 (Mitchell)); VOTED to SELL prisons instead of refurbishing them to house dangerous criminals and keep them off of our streets (AB 826 (Jones-Sawyer)); and VOTED to WEAKEN prostitution laws in CA (AB 336 (Ammiano)).

Another claim Mr. Cooley makes in his radio ads is his work on the Sacramento Metro Fire District tax that was wrongly charged to residents in Rancho Cordova. The interesting part of this claim, that has not been discussed, is the length of time this tax had been misapplied to residents of Rancho Cordova.

According to news reports this tax had been misapplied since 2009, when Mr. Cooley was a City Councilman for the City of Rancho Cordova. This raises questions as to whether or not then Councilman Cooley knew about this misapplied tax and did nothing to help his own residents until just this year.

Mr. Cooley has adopted a campaign slogan of “Focused on the bottom line – creating jobs” and in previous releases the Haaland for Assembly campaign has asked whose bottom line is Mr. Cooley watching? It turns out to be a significant question because according to records published by the California State Assembly Rules Committee, the liberal Democrat is on track to spend in excess of $1.2 million of taxpayer funds to operate his Assembly office 13 miles away from the Capitol in Rancho Cordova.

Haaland stated, “He chairs no standing committee, he is chairman of a Select Committee that met once during the legislative session while issuing no report to date as required by Assembly Standing Rules, and he holds the only taxpayer paid “alternate” position on the Assembly Rules Committee. Yet, while his constituents are dealing with the impacts of rising food prices, steadily increasing gas prices, lower household incomes, and more and more taxes that he’s supported, Mr. Cooley joins the ‘Million Dollar Man’ Club using taxpayer money. It’s just one more example of the explanations he should provide to the voters of this district.”

Last year Assemblyman Cooley spent almost $600,000 for his office and various other expenses among them include:

$200,000 to be an “alternate” member of the Rules Committee. It’s common for Committee Chairpersons to receive additional budgetary support, but no other alternate member receives a similar allocation.

Over $100,000 for the Select Committee on Community and Neighborhood Development. This is a NON-policy making committee and sees NO legislation whatsoever. It has met ONCE, over a year ago in August of 2013, and has never released a report on what its hearing actually accomplished nor has it ever held a hearing since. Mr. Cooley was appointed as chair of this committee way back in early 2013.

This year, Assemblyman Ken Cooley is on track to spend $100,000 more than last year, which takes it over the $600,000 mark for 2014 alone and puts the overall total expenditures for his first term in office at $1.2 million and counting. By comparison Assemblywoman Beth Gaines, who resides in Roseville, spent a paltry $300,000 on her office last year and would be on track to spend HALF as much as Assemblyman Cooley who actually lives closer. 

“While Mr. Cooley has let everyone know he’s declined to accept any per diem payments during his term, in addition to turning down his pay raise last year his grand gesture of refusing around $35,000 of taxable income in exchange for $1.2 million of taxpayer cost is hardly the act of someone “focused on the bottom line.” In fact, the $35,000 he ‘turned down’ so publicly won’t even cover the cost of his former boss, Senator Calderon, collecting his paycheck while he awaits his trial in federal court,” Haaland said.

Speaking to the issue Haaland noted, “While families in the 8th Assembly District continue making hard choices regarding their family budgets and our district communities, such as Foothill Farms, North Highlands, and even Rancho Cordova suffer with unemployment rates anywhere from 20 to 45% higher than current state unemployment rate, our representative disregards his own campaign platform. So just who’s bottom line is he focused?”

The Haaland for Assembly Campaign has received now four invitations for forums and debates and still have received NO confirmation that any of them have been accepted by Mr. Cooley. 

However, continuing our expose on Mr. Cooley's ties to the federally indicted Senator Ron Calderon, we have provided the following redacted (of course) personnel files from the California State Senate and the corresponding request letters that were sent to Senate Rules under the Legislative Open Records Act. If you scroll the documents, you will clearly see Mr. Cooley as working for Calderon. If you look closely at the dates of these actions they seem to be closely related to the June Primary election followed by his return and then again for the General Election followed by his return.

Which further begs the question what was Mr. Cooley doing for Senator Ron Calderon? Why did he not know about the questionable activities of the Senator? Why did he accept campaign contributions and fail to return them? More importantly, why is he not accepting debate invitations to set the record straight? 

It should also be noted that major news outlets have sought information under the Legislative Open Records Act, for other state officials who have been indicted or federally charged with crimes, all or most have been summarily denied.

So if Senate Rules will not provide information it leaves Mr. Cooley as the only one who can.

~ Post Script ~

After looking further into Mr. Cooley's pathway to elected office in the Legislature, we came across a set of questionnaires that ask for occupation information. Notice something missing about what he lists as his occupation and employer?

 and better still, here is his signature from this questionnaire:

Notice anything odd about that? If you don't take a look at the records request from above and if you look at the dates he took a "leave of absence" from Senator Calderon's office (4/5/12) it was well after this document was signed. 

Here's another:

and the signature:

Notice the same pattern? Why did he hide his actual employment from the voters which, according to Senate Rules, was for California State Senator Ron Calderon?

California State Senator Ron Calderon has been indicted on 24 criminal charges by the FBI, including allegations that he accepted bribes in order to get two pieces of legislation passed, money laundering and tax evasion. He is currently receiving a salary but has been suspended by the California State Senate. 

We know that Mr. Cooley worked for Senator Calderon as his principal consultant for the banking and finance committee, which was highly criticized by consumer watchdog which stated:

"Cooley is a former legislative counsel for State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Corp. His appointment to advise the committee that has purview over the insurance industry has sparked concerns over potential conflicts of interest."

But Mr. Cooley also served as his Legislative Director during the same time that he was running for State Assembly back in 2012. We have alluded to the various omissions of this information, but we can validate that again from a Breitbart California story back in April of this year:

Before he was Assemblyman Cooley, he was Legislative Director for State Senator Ron Calderon and the principal consultant to the Senate’s insurance committee.

Breitbart CA went on to further reinforce a claim this site made yesterday  that he accepted $7,800 as a campaign contribution from Senator Ron Calderon:

"Project Vote Smart shows that Cooley has accepted $7,800 from the Ron Calderon for Assembly 2014 account..."

"...still lists "Senator Ron Calderon" on his endorsements page for his re-election campaign in District 8."

Following that Breitbart CA article on April 21st, Mr. Cooley's campaign  removed the Calderon endorsement 3 days later...BUT his campaign has yet to return the campaign contribution of $7,800. 

Even one of Mr. Cooley's colleagues, Assemblymember Christina Garcia, has called for Senator Calderon to resign because of his legal problems. Which leaves us with several questions that are posed quite nicely from this article:

"Given the serious corruption charges Calderon is facing, it’s quite frankly surprising that Cooley has continued to be so visibly supportive of his former boss, and has kept the contributions from Calderon’s campaign committee.

Calderon’s refusal to resign, and his choice to continue to receive a taxpayer-funded paycheck, all but guarantees Cooley will spend the rest of his campaign having to answer questions about Calderon and his knowledge of the alleged corruption.

Does he believe Calderon should resign?

What, if anything, did he know about the alleged transactions Calderon was involved in?

Does he believe Calderon should continue to receive a paycheck courtesy of California’s taxpayers?

Will he return the thousands of dollars in contributions he has received from Calderon?

Assemblyman Ken Cooley has been rather quiet on his connections with federally indicted Senator Ron Calderon.

No wonder...Mr. Cooley used to work for him. 

While he was indeed tapped by Senator Calderon to be a Principal Consultant for the Senate Banking Finance and Insurance Committee (which created more fervor from Consumer Watchdog, as he was a lobbyist for State Farm Insurance), what he never mentioned to tell you back in 2012 and even now in 2014 was his role as the LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR for Senator Ron Calderon...wait for it...WHILE HE WAS RUNNING FOR LEGISLATIVE OFFICE. 

I don't need to remind you of all the corruption stories surrounding Senator Ron Calderon and the FBI, those can easily be found with a simply Google search. But as the Legislative Director Mr. Cooley would have been tasked with monitoring and staffing the Senator's legislative agenda, including said film tax credit, which came under much scrutiny by the FBI and was labeled a catalyst for the indictment.

What role did Mr. Cooley play in Senator Calderon's office? Well we don't know, but maybe he should come out and tell us...

He did after all accept a campaign contribution from Senator Ron Calderon's campaign account in 2012.

Recently, Sacramento area home values have started to rise to the relief of homeowners everywhere who weathered the declining economy over the past few years. This has been a welcome development and a relief to many, but these homeowners are now facing a not so pleasant surprise.

According to a July 2013 Sacramento Bee Article some Sacramento homeowners will see their property taxes rise as much as 30% in the next few months. Although Proposition 13 protects homeowners from property tax increases over 2% annually, Proposition 8 of 1978, which allowed property taxes to be reduced when housing values fall, also allows for increases of more than 2% on properties that received the property tax cut when their values declined.

This huge increase may hurt families that are just beginning to get back on their feet after struggling to stay in their homes - and the Legislature wants more.

A 30% property tax increase could be devastating, but there is another issue on the horizon that could make things far worse for all Californians struggling to keep their homes - the elimination of the protections of Proposition 13.

When the Supreme Court issued its opinion on Proposition 8 of 2008 in June of 2013, their ruling was based on the courts opinion that the proponents of the proposition had no standing because California's constitutional officers, Governor Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris had decided not to defend the law.

Their decision to not defend the law is not only a slap in the face to the State's Constitution, which Brown and Harris swore to uphold when they took office, but it also sets all other ballot propositions on tenuous footing.

Should the constitutional officers of California choose not to defend a ballot measure passed by the people of California in court, the court can decide that anyone who does support the law has no standing. This is a dangerous precedent that has all Californian's thinking.

According to the Sacramento Bee, many organizations including Common Cause, a government transparency organization, are carefully considering how to respond to this decision to ensure that voter approved ballot measures are protected from this in the future.

We all know that the Democrats in the State Legislature have been attempting to chip away at Proposition 13 for some time, most recently with the passage of ACA 8, which gained the support of Assemblymember Ken Cooley. If anyone were to challenge the constitutionality of Proposition 13 in court, will democrats defend it as their oath of office demands they do?

Will Assemblymember Cooley protect Californian's and his constituents from excessive property tax increases, even though he has no problem with increasing taxes or changing the vote thresholds that enact new taxes? or will he continue to be absent from these important debates that affect his district?

Welcome back from the long holiday weekend!

Like millions of Californians we here at CooleyWatch spent a portion of the weekend driving up and down the state, which was not the most enjoyable experience given the sad condition of California’s roads and highways.

As Dan Walters pointed out in his Sacramento Bee column last week, California has the worst infrastructure in the nation. We know that California’s transportation infrastructure is built largely around use of the car and freeways, but:

California was so adept at building and maintaining first-class highways that its engineers were lent to other nations all over the globe. But, as with other public services, the roadway system began to deteriorate in the 1970s and 1980s.

This status is made worse given that we also pay the highest gasoline taxes in the nation, 72 cents per gallon, that is a dedicated revenue stream to fund our roadways and highways.

The 72 cents per gallon that California’s motorists are paying represent about 20 percent of the cost of fuel and generate more than $10 billion a year. On paper, according to a recent state-by-state compilation, California is annually spending $679,000 per mile on its highways, the second-highest level in the nation.

(And we’re sure that we can all agree that our roadways are in pristine condition…yeah right - CooleyWatch commentary)

While it is disappointing that the best roads are not the result of the highest taxes, what is equally troubling, is the bizarre and contradictory legislation that has passed before Assemblyman Ken Cooley and gained his support.

In February, Assemblyman Ken Cooley introduced AB 603, to further the construction of the Capitol Southeast Connector Project. This highway would connect the 99 south of Elk Grove to the 50 in El Dorado County and according to Assemblymember Cooley’s website:

In order to facilitate the building of a Highway 5/Highway 50 connecter in Sacramento County to ease traffic congestion, the Joint Power Authority (JPA) in charge of the project needs additional authority for the construction and design of the connector. AB 603 gives the JPA this necessary ‘design-build’ contracting authority to begin financing and construction of the roadway.

Given Assemblymember Cooley’s desire to facilitate the construction of a new highway in his district, it took us by surprise when he then voted for AB 1290 (Perez) in May. AB 1290 would basically stop the construction of new highways, discourage Californian’s from driving and take away highway funding dollars.

Furthermore, a month after he voted YES on AB 1290 he contradicted himself again by voting YES on AB 8 (Perea). Among other things, AB 8 funds the construction of hydrogen fueling stations to encourage the use of hydrogen powered cars. (We’re curious to know by the way how many of you own a hydrogen powered car 1, and 2, how many of us Californians can actually afford to purchase one of these new fancy cars?)

After these three votes, we at CooleyWatch are now wondering where Assememblymember Cooley stands. Do you support highway construction and maintenance? Do you support safe and reliable infrastructure? Do you support the reduction of traffic congestion in your district? These are questions that remain unanswered given Assemblymember Cooley’s support of AB 603, AB 1290 and AB 8 and we think there should be some clarity.

Unfortunately, this only continues the trend of SILENCE we have heard from Assemblyman Ken Cooley. So we will continue to ask the question…