Column: A small-city mayor takes on big money and political propaganda

Steve Younger might have loved a pleasant, quiet retirement on this charming waterfront neighborhood within the northern a part of the Bay Space.

However Younger is a sociable kind and was wanting to make new acquaintances after he and his spouse moved right here in 2012. He’s not the type to hang around in bars, the 70-year-old Younger stated, and he doesn’t play any aggressive sports activities. So one method to meet of us, he figured, was to serve on an area board or fee.

After a number of interviews, Younger landed a spot on Benicia’s Planning Fee; it helped that he had spent his profession in native authorities, retiring as a pacesetter of Sacramento’s Housing and Redevelopment Company. His appointment to the fee led to his election to the Metropolis Council, which in flip positioned Younger for a profitable 2020 run for mayor — and a struggle with the oil firm that looms giant on this small metropolis.

Younger’s victory, and the deep-pocketed marketing campaign towards him, has positioned him on the intersection of two of the extra insidious developments in politics at this time: the flood of limitless cash and the gutting of native information media, which has left a void too simply stuffed by propaganda and misinformation.

“I perceive that it’s authorized,” Younger stated of the unimaginable quantities of money sloshing round campaigns from the White Home to Metropolis Corridor. “I perceive the Supreme Court docket stated it’s OK. But it surely’s not proper. And in my opinion it’s not democratic.”

So Younger is pushing again as finest he can, recruiting unbiased marketing campaign fact-checkers and searching for a municipal ordinance to forestall digital manipulation of political advertisements and different willful deceit.

“Individuals can say no matter they need,” Younger stated, “and in case you don’t have the cash to refute it, it can stick to voters.”

Benicia, which is one in every of California’s oldest cities, is residence to about 28,000 residents, a thriving artists colony and a sprawling oil refinery owned by Valero Vitality Corp. The San Antonio-based agency is town’s largest employer and taxpayer, a serious political power and a supply of appreciable native controversy.

The 2 worst refinery accidents within the Bay Space in recent times occurred in Benicia. Final month, San Francisco public radio station KQED reported the plant had launched extreme ranges of hazardous chemical compounds for greater than 15 years earlier than regulators found the emissions.

Naturally, the place there’s smoke, there’s an try to achieve political affect.

Within the final two elections, Valero spent tons of of hundreds of {dollars} supporting its most well-liked candidates for mayor and Metropolis Council, and concentrating on these, like Younger, who favored tighter regulation of its refinery. (The title of Valero’s political motion committee, Working Households for a Robust Benicia, is clearly extra palatable than Massive Oil Firm Spending Enormous Sums to Preserve Small Neighborhood Underneath Its Thumb.)

Main companies definitely have a proper to weigh in on issues affecting their companies, their workers and the communities the place they function. Based on the Supreme Court docket, that constitutes political speech protected by the first Modification. Companies are entitled to as a lot speech as they care to buy, which is significantly greater than your typical voter or candidate for native workplace can presumably afford.

“Companies can primarily purchase elected officers … by pumping cash into getting their most well-liked candidates into workplace,” or by opposing these “not as beholden or sympathetic,” stated Sean McMorris of California Frequent Trigger, a nonprofit good-government group.

In Benicia, the high-priced marketing campaign towards Younger by Valero and its allies included mailers that darkened his complexion — presumably to make him seem extra sinister — and distorted his voting file and efficiency on the Metropolis Council. A number of assertions, Younger stated, have been patently false.

He gained however.

As we took a driving tour of town — beneath a cloud of blossoming Bradford pears, previous white picket fences and Craftsman houses, by means of the economic park that homes Valero — Younger spoke of the pleasures, and frustrations, of serving as mayor. The job pays $525 a month and comes with healthcare advantages. That’s not loads given the fixed calls for, plus added pressure over masks and vaccinations, however it’s rooted Younger locally and, as he as soon as hoped, launched him to a lot of individuals.

“I prefer it,” he stated of his place, after temporary consideration.

What he can’t abide is the outsized political affect of town’s company Goliath. Elections in a spot like Benicia must be decided, Younger stated, by candidates knocking on doorways and assembly voters, not by whoever wields the heftiest pockets.

So together with Vice Mayor Tom Campbell, Younger got here up with two proposals to manipulate campaigns and attempt to stem Valero’s affect.

The primary sought to determine a form of municipal reality fee. However the metropolis legal professional famous the excessive authorized bar dealing with lawmakers in the event that they sought to enter the marketing campaign fact-checking enterprise.

Younger then approached the native newspaper, the Benicia Herald, in hope its meager employees will start truth-squadding political advertisements. If the paper is prepared, candidates “might use that in some future mailing or social media submit, saying a 3rd celebration has checked out this and it’s false.”

The second proposal, to forestall digital manipulation — like casting a candidate in shadow — and different types of digital fakery, is about to go earlier than town’s Open Authorities Fee for consideration.

“I need to have one thing in entrance of the council by summertime,” Younger stated because the solar glinted off the Carquinez Strait, “as a result of clearly this must be in place earlier than individuals begin voting.”

At a time when democracy is underneath assault, the decimation of native media — typically a neighborhood’s solely supply of professionally gathered information — has turn into extra worrisome than ever. With out somebody protecting a watchful eye and holding the highly effective to account, these with the cash and means to have their approach will solely develop extra influential.

Younger’s effort is one small step in a single small metropolis. But it surely’s one thing, and a worthy instance others would possibly select to comply with.