Nick Melvoin’s School Board Candidacy Is Controlled By Wealthy, “Special” Interests
When parents pretend astroturf is genuine
It’s amazing to see the talking points issuing from 4th LAUSD board district (LAUSD4) candidate Nick Melvoin’s boosters coming from multiple directions, in persistent waves, with identical wording. Social media messages from “just-folks” all feature professional flourishes such as, for example, every single appearance of the candidate’s name typed ALL IN CAPS, and always alongside catchy phrases or paired with hashtags.
Can no one be left to think for themselves and ask genuine questions from within? Must all public expression be focus-grouped? Even reporters seem to be regurgitating identical, manipulated questions.
This contributes to a collective loss-of-confidence among we, the people, that anyone can figure out what information is true and genuine. Conversely we second-guess the validity of even primary sources.
Melvoin’s donors are not local stakeholders of the school district he seeks to control
Let’s consider this aggressively repeated challenge:
“How Do You Know Melvoin’s Taking Money From Outsiders”?
Well, the answer is simple to obtain in principle, if difficult in practice: peruse the City of LA ethics website and count the people with out-of-town addresses found there.
As of April 20, 2017, a rough categorization of personal contributions to Nick Melvoin suggests that he received “outside” donations from 
folks across the country (fig 1) totaling $81K dollars. But note that California is a big place; from northern California to parts south of Los Angeles, only 41% of his donors are eligible to vote for the LAUSD school board, and only a little more than half the total of personal donations originate from LAUSD4 stakeholders.
folks across the country (fig 1) totaling $81K dollars. But note that California is a big place; from northern California to parts south of Los Angeles, only 41% of his donors are eligible to vote for the LAUSD school board, and only a little more than half the total of personal donations originate from LAUSD4 stakeholders.
Campaign monies exist in two completely different pots
In tracing these patterns of giving to candidate Melvoin, it is critical to understand that campaign money derives from two very different sources (fig 2).
Contributions to the candidate directly are limited in size to $1,100 per election from any given donor. The candidate controls expressions funded by this money; he is accountable for “campaign contributions”.
A second source of money supports the candidate as well, only it has no upper limit on the size of donation permitted. This money is aggregated by a “Committee” for the purpose of making “Independent Expenditures”. The “IEC” is not controlled by the candidate, enabling “plausible deniability” of any message it conveys.
This is the rationale Nick Melvoin claims in disavowing California Charter School Association (CCSA) money, distributed in the name of their copyright-infringing “PTA” (for Parent-Teacher “ALLIANCE”, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CCSA, which Nick Melvoin’s School Board Candidacy Is Controlled By Wealthy, “Special” Interests – redqueeninla:
