"Unfortunately, while they're paying off Paul, they're getting robbed by Peter — in the form of some payday lender's steep fee," she adds. "We're already cutting safety-net protections for the most vulnerable among us, so I couldn't add this insult to that injury."
The reward for Calderon has been significant. According to MAPLight, he received more in direct campaign contributions connected to the payday and title loans special-interest group — $31,450 — than any other member of the Assembly in the 2009-10 or 2010-11 sessions. In the state Senate, his brother Ron received the most from the payday group — $50,000.
ILLUSTRATION BY FRED NOLAND
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The current $300 loans cost a fee of $45, the maximum allowed. But the fee is deducted from the loan, leaving the borrower just $255 — and beholden for $300. That must be repaid within two weeks.
The average payday loan customer takes out seven such loans each year.
Ron Calderon did not respond to interview requests.
Charles Calderon argues that the current $300 limit barely pays the bills. "There are people who think payday lenders are vultures," he says. "I don't think I'm in a position to decide what [people's] reasons are for wanting these loans. I represent East L.A., and those people need that money when they need it, sometimes to save the family car. I grew up in East L.A. in a poor family. I know desperation. Desperate people do desperate things."
The assemblyman bristles when he's accused of taking money for his vote, or as payback for carrying a bill for special interests.
"I might take money from a bank or a union, and then two or three years down the road I vote on a bill affecting that bank or union — and I get criticized because they gave me money years before."
Not always "two or three years" later. As MAPLight.org points out regarding his yes vote on AB 2774, the big sums appeared in Calderon's campaign chest within days.
He also says that in all his years in Sacramento, "I have never seen an instance of quid pro quo in the Legislature. The dollars don't work that way in politics."
But that's untrue on its face. Calderon's Sacramento colleagues have been convicted of racketeering, extortion, money-laundering, bribe-taking and other forms of corruption. State Senator Joseph B. Montoya was convicted in 1990, state Senator Alan Robbins in '91, state Senator Frank Hill in '94 and Assemblyman Pat Nolan in 1995.
Former state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, a Republican now running for the Orange County Board of Supervisors, served as vice chairman of the powerful Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee — a juice committee if ever there was one — when Charles Calderon was its chairman.
DeVore and Burbank-area state Assemblyman Mike Gatto are the sole California state legislators who refuse to "author" laws that are really ghostwritten by special interests.
Says DeVore: "I often went before a committee and I'd be there by myself. No staff. No lobbyists. Just me alone, and the committee chairman would ask, almost incredulously, 'Do you have a sponsor?' For God's sake, I'm the lawmaker. I don't need a 'sponsor.' Not a company, not a union. It's patronizing to think any worthy bill needs a 'sponsor.' "
DeVore agrees with Calderon that trying to win a seat in the Legislature is difficult — if not impossible — without raising money from outside the local district.
Famed outlaw Willie Sutton "was asked why he robbed banks and he said, 'That's where the money is,' " DeVore says. "The money is in Sacramento — and representatives go where the money is, with the least amount of effort." But he also says, "Quid pro quo is illegal, but it seems like that's what's going on."
Plenty of fellow Democrats are not enthusiastic about the way Calderon operates, although DeVore calls him "someone I could work with." The mixed feelings arise from the way Calderon forces a power play, sliding from one issue to the next, sitting on the fence, voting along Democratic Party lines when it suits him and then along Republican lines when that's to his advantage — or to the advantage of special interests that funnel him money.
"A small group of Democratic legislators that includes Calderon can decide what happens in the Legislature because they [are willing to] band together with Republicans to hold a majority," DeVore says. "Lobbyists have to pony up money to talk to him. So an inordinate amount of money is given to legislators like Calderon."
David Futch can be reached at davidfutch@roadrunner.com.
Note: View this story at laweekly.com to read a list of Charles Calderon's Top 10 Special-Interest Backers.
