Chevron is literally buying a new Bay Area Mayor
Chevron has poured millions into a campaign committee to influence Richmond’s mayoral and City Council elections, and the unprecedented spending has fueled questions about what the oil titan hopes to achieve with the best city government its money can buy.
Why so much and why now?
“If you’re Chevron, you’re probably asking yourself, ‘Why not?’” said current councilmember and mayoral candidate Tom Butt. “There’s no reason you wouldn’t want to control the city that in turn has regulatory control on your investment.”
Robert Smith, a political scientist at San Francisco State who’s been watching Richmond closely, said Chevron’s thinly-veiled influence this election season might backfire and draw new, unsympathetic voters to the booth.
Such large amounts of money might “offend people’s democratic sensibilities, people who might otherwise be uninterested,” he said. “Throwing your weight around that excessively is just going beyond the pale.”
That weight has already amounted to about $3 million in the company’s campaign committee, Moving Forward. The money supports Nat Bates for mayor and Donna Powers, Al Martinez and Charles Ramsey for City Council. Almost $1 million of the chest has funded a flurry of hit pieces and commercials denigrating their opponents, candidates who are members of the Richmond Progressive Alliance.
http://richmondconfidential.org/2014/10/27/why-chevrons-trying-to-buy-richmonds-elections/
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