Caviar politics

Let’s set aside the question of whether the speaker of the Assembly really has to spend so much of his time and his donors’ money traveling to France, Italy, Spain and other foreign venues, as reported Friday in a Times story on Fabian Nunez’s extravagant use of campaign contributions. Let’s grant that a speaker can be expected to rake in lots of cash from big donors and might spend it lavishly, perhaps on colleagues and aides amid policy discussions, at restaurants in Sacramento and Los Angeles and, OK, for some reason, hotels in Barcelona and Rome and a wine “cave” in Bordeaux. Let’s dismiss as wicked humor his statement to Times staff writer Nancy Vogel that this luxe lifestyle is not much different from “how most middle-class people live.” And let’s assume, pending completion of an audit by the Fair Political Practices Commission, that every dollar was properly spent on something reasonably related to a political, legislative or governmental purpose, as required by law.

Nunez still has no legitimate reason to keep from Californians just why, and on whom, he spent all that money. The fact that his staggering travel bills weren’t paid by taxpayers does not end the discussion. He was on public time, even if not the public dime, and is living a tycoon’s lifestyle only because his position as speaker makes him valuable to contributors who want to sway him. It’s troubling enough that special interests are paying his bills. It’s worse when he wants the public to simply trust, without explanation, that his $3,199 stay at the Hotel Parco in Rome had some nexus to his official duties.

The speaker asserted that he wouldn’t have to rely on his $5.3-million “Friends of Fabian Nunez” campaign account if he were independently wealthy. That’s a non sequitur. If his expenditures were in fact related to legislative purposes, he wouldn’t pay them out of his own pocket anyway, so it would make no difference if he were as rich as, say, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The governor funds his own lavish foreign travel not from his bank account but through contributions to a nonprofit group that hides the names of its donors, who then write off their donations as tax deductions. That arrangement is troubling in its own right, but it doesn’t make Nunez’s refusal to provide more details any more palatable. The speaker must raise an enormous amount of money in order to keep political pace with Schwarzenegger -- to make it clear, for example, that he can counter any ballot measure the governor might decide to take to voters. But there’s nothing about that lamentable fact of political life that makes it necessary for Nunez to match the governor meal for meal or hotel for hotel.

By providing details on his expenditures, the speaker can put an end to speculation that his actions were anything other than in the best interests of California. Failure to do that simply enhances the perception that the Legislature is working for shadowy special interests who can afford to gather in France around an expensive bottle of Bordeaux.