In another sign of the local business community’s disenchantment with political leaders, the San Fernando Valley’s leading business organization is forming a political action committee to help elect pro-business candidates to local and state offices.
The Valley Industry & Commerce Association’s political action committee, called the San Fernando Valley Leadership PAC, will stage its first formal event Wednesday with a fundraiser at the Van Nuys home of VICA Chief Executive Stuart Waldman.
“We want to be in a position to recruit, run and elect business-friendly candidates who represent the Valley,” Waldman said. “This was one of my goals when I came here to VICA two years ago.”
As a non-profit, VICA cannot legally make financial contributions to campaigns or candidates; it had to form the political action committee to do so. The association had previously focused its political activities on local and state ballot measures and ordinances being considered by the Los Angeles City Council.
“VICA now only takes positions on issues, but the PAC can endorse and financially support candidates,” VICA Chairman Daymond Rice said in a press release announcing the committee’s formation.
Business leaders believe the need for such PACs has become greater in recent years. Both the city of Los Angeles and the state have enacted policies regarded as antibusiness, often at the behest of powerful interest groups. On city issues, labor has a formidable influence. On the state level, in addition to labor, environmental and consumer groups have lobbied for antibusiness legislation.
To stem this tide of antibusiness policies, more business-friendly lawmakers must be elected, many business leaders say.
“The challenging business climate in Los Angeles and the perpetual budget crisis has woken a lot of people up to the importance of electing pro-business candidates to office,” said Sam Garrison, vice president of public policy at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.
Just such an opportunity is now on the horizon in Los Angeles: Half of the City Council and state legislative seats in the San Fernando Valley will come open over the next four years,
“We have an opportunity to play a major role in shaping who our elected officials are,” Waldman said.
Waldman said that because there’s only one open seat in the Valley next year – Councilman Greig Smith’s Northwest Valley district – he does not expect the committee to be fully active until the 2012 state elections and the 2013 city elections.
Seed money
While he would have liked to set up VICA’s political action committee sooner, Waldman said the recession made it difficult to raise the seed money necessary. He would not disclose the amount that was raised to launch the committee.
This week’s fundraiser is organized by Los Angeles lobbying firm Afriat Consulting Group, L.A.-based Fiona Hutton & Associates, a strategic communications company; two L.A. lobbying firms; former VICA Chairman Greg Lippe; and the Vons supermarket chain, a unit of Pleasanton-based Safeway Inc. All made significant financial contributions to help the committee get off the ground.
With the formation of the committee, VICA becomes the fourth significant business advocacy group with a PAC that will focus on the issues involving government in the city of Los Angeles.
The others are the Los Angeles Area chamber, the Central City Association and the Los Angeles County Business Federation. The chamber’s committee was formed about a decade ago, while the Business Federation’s PAC is about two years old.
“We are thrilled with VICA’s action to reach out and provide a focused way for Valley business owners to have more say in the political process,” said Tracy Rafter, chief executive of the Business Federation.
Beyond those four business groups, more than 30 other chamber organizations have committees that raise funds for candidates in other cities in the county, Rafter said.
“Facilitating communication between all these efforts of the business community will indeed bring an influence that has not been seen before,” she said.
Despite the number of business-oriented committees, there is little concern that the voice of business in Los Angeles will be diluted.
“Each of these groups has slightly different constituencies, so more PACs mean more businesses and business people involved with city politics, and that’s a good thing,” the chamber’s Garrison said.
Most of the time, these business PACs will line up behind a single candidate in a City Council or state legislative race. But it’s also possible that they could back different candidates in the same race. While business leaders are somewhat concerned about this scenario, they said that it’s likely to be unusual enough so as not to pose a major problem.
“In the rare event that they do pick different candidates, that would mean that there’s more than one business-friendly candidate in the race,” Waldman said, “which in itself is a good thing.”
