They clearly aspire to re-establish the centralized legislative leadership that had been eroded by term limits, and to do so, they want bigger roles in amassing and dispensing campaign funds to their favored legislators and candidates, ala Unruh and Brown.
A late-blooming bill, Assembly Bill 84, would do exactly that, giving leadership campaign organizations the same status as political parties, and thus allowing them to raise and spend much more money.
Political reform groups oppose it, of course. “AB 84 would be the biggest rollback of California’s campaign finance law in at least a decade,” Nicolas Heidorn of California Common Cause told the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee before it voted to approve the measure last week.
Interestingly, however, AB 84 also draws opposition from the California Democratic Party even though Rendon and Atkins are high-ranking leaders of the party, apparently because it would erode the party’s powerful role in financing campaigns provided by Proposition 34.