Part 24 (1/2)

Early in the session when the lobbying question was, because of the excitement over Anderson, decidedly prominent, Sanford in the Senate and Callan in the a.s.sembly introduced bills requiring lobbyists who appear at the Capitol during a legislative session to register their names, the names of their employers and the amount and nature of their compensation.

At the close of the session they were, under the terms of the measures, required to file a detailed statement of their expenditures.

Had these measures become laws they might have proved very embarra.s.sing to certain gentlemen who were very well received by the machine element in both Senate and a.s.sembly chamber.

But they didn't become laws.

The a.s.sembly bill went to the a.s.sembly Judiciary Committee, which held it two months, finally, on March 16th, reporting it to the a.s.sembly without recommendation. On March 19th, the measure was refused pa.s.sage.

The Senate bill went to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Committee referred it back to the Senate with the recommendation that it do not pa.s.s. On January 29th, it, too, was defeated.

The lobbying problem, like Jere Burke, continues with us.

Chapter XXIII.

Influence of the San Francisco Delegation.

Casts Nearly Twenty-five Per Cent of the Vote in Each House - Majority Invariably Found on the Side of the Machine - Opposed Pa.s.sage of the Walker-Otis Bill - Instrumental in Amending the Direct Primary Law - Defeated Local Option Bill.

The popular idea that the State outside San Francisco is not concerned about political conditions at the metropolis is not borne out by the record of the legislative session of 1909. The San Francisco delegations in Senate and a.s.sembly had, as they always have had and will have for many a year to come, the deciding voice in practically all important issues.

San Francisco elects within one of 25 per cent of the members of the State Senate, and within two of 25 per cent of the a.s.sembly. In other words, nine of the forty Senators come from San Francisco, and eighteen of the eighty a.s.semblymen. The nine San Francisco Senators and the eighteen San Francisco a.s.semblymen join with the outside members in making laws not for San Francisco alone, but for the entire State. Their numbers give them decided advantage. The character of the laws pa.s.sed at a legislative session almost invariably bears the stamp of the character of the San Francisco delegation. The character of the delegation depends upon political conditions at San Francisco. The whole State, then, is concerned in the efforts of the best citizens.h.i.+p of the metropolis to oust from power the corrupt element that has so long dominated San Francisco politics.

The record of the San Francisco delegation at the session of 1909, while better in the a.s.sembly than in the Senate, is not one for San Francisco - or the State for that matter - to enthuse over. The votes on test questions of the eighteen members of the a.s.sembly and of the nine members of the Senate, will be found set forth in tables in the appendix.

The table showing the votes of the nine San Francisco Senators covers sixteen roll calls, on which the San Francisco Senators cast 128 votes, ninety-nine of which were in support of machine policies and only twenty-nine against. Thus the nine Senators averaged on sixteen roll calls, eleven votes for the machine and three votes against. Had the San Francisco Senators broken even on the issues involved; that is to say, had sixty-four of the 128 votes been cast for the machine, and sixty-four against the machine, and the sixty-four anti-machine votes been evenly distributed among the several issues, the machine would have been defeated on every issue coming before the Senate.

The a.s.sembly showing is not quite so overwhelmingly machine as that of the Senate, but it is bad enough. Eleven roll calls are considered. On these the eighteen San Francisco a.s.semblymen cast a total of 165 votes, of which 108 were for machine policies and fifty-seven against. Thus, even in the a.s.sembly, the vote was approximately 2 to 1 in favor of the machine. Of the fifty-seven anti-machine votes, eleven were cast by Callan, who made an absolutely clean record, nine by Gerdes and seven by Lightner, a total of twenty-seven for the three. Deducted from the total of anti-machine votes, this leaves only thirty anti-machine votes for the remaining fifteen members of the delegation. Or to put it the other way, Callan, Gerdes and Lightner cast among them only four machine votes, which leaves 104 machine votes cast by the other fifteen San Francisco members.

On the individual issues the San Francisco Senators and a.s.semblymen made as bad a showing as does their vote in the aggregate. The pa.s.sage of the Walker-Otis Racetrack Gambling bill for example demonstrates that the poolsellers had little hold upon the legislators of any community of the State outside of San Francisco. In the Senate but seven votes were cast against the bill. Five of the seven came from the San Francisco delegation - Finn, Hare, Hartman, Reily and Wolfe. The two remaining came from Alameda and Shasta-Siskiyou Counties. Leavitt, representing Alameda, and Weed, representing Shasta and Siskiyou, voted with the five San Francisco Senators against suppressing bookmaking and pool-selling.

The record of the San Francisco a.s.sembly delegation on the anti-gambling measure is scarcely less suggestive. Before the Walker-Otis bill could pa.s.s the a.s.sembly the proponents of the measure had to win six fights, as is shown by the table giving the several votes taken in the a.s.sembly on the Walker-Otis bill. The three most important of the six were:

1. To prevent the bill being referred back to the Committee on Public Morals.

2. To pa.s.s the measure on third reading without amendment.

3. To prevent reconsideration of the vote by which the bill had been pa.s.sed.

In the first fight twenty-three a.s.semblymen voted to refer the bill back to the Committee. Of these twelve - more than one-half - were from San Francisco.

The day of the second fight, only ten a.s.semblymen voted on the side of the gamblers. Every one of the ten was from San Francisco.

In the third fight, on the motion to reconsider, nineteen a.s.semblymen voted for reconsideration. Of these, ten, more than fifty per cent, were from San Francisco.

Or, to put it in a lump, in the three most important fights over the Walker-Otis bill in the a.s.sembly, in the aggregate fifty-two votes were cast against the measure. Of these, thirty-two were from San Francisco a.s.semblymen. Only twenty were from outside San Francisco.

The universal demand throughout the State for the pa.s.sage of an anti-pool selling measure offset the influence and the vote of the San Francisco delegation in both Senate and a.s.sembly. But in the issues more involved, where the lines were more closely drawn, San Francisco practically made the laws for the whole State. This could be demonstrated by many instances. The most striking perhaps are shown by the histories of the Direct Primary measure and the Railroad Regulation bills.