Council Blocks Rewording of Ballot Measure

Simplified ballot language aimed at explaining to voters a hotly debated campaign contribution measure was blocked Friday by City Council opponents of the April primary election proposal.

Backers of the Charter amendment proposal immediately charged that opponents of the sample ballot language hope that voters will turn down the measure because they do not understand it. At issue is whether a lay person’s guide to the highly technical measure should be included on an information packet given to voters.

Councilman Marvin Braude said, “I think it (the action) will boomerang and campaign reform will pass.” Braude was one of six council members who voted for the ballot summary language, falling two short of a majority of eight needed to pass it. Five council members voted against it.

Opponents of the campaign measure denied that they intended to weaken the proposal’s chances, explaining that they voted against the simplified ballot language because it omitted several important points.

While turning down the simplified language of the campaign contribution measure, the council approved summaries for six other Charter proposals on the April 9 ballot.

Charter Amendment 1 would, among other things, establish a contribution ceiling for candidates for mayor, city attorney, city controller and City Council.

Read by Committee

For more than a decade, measures placed before the voters in municipal elections have first been submitted to a special committee that includes a reading expert. City Councilman Joel Wachs, who sponsored the legislation that set up the committee, said ballot proposals have become so complex that even voters with college or advanced degrees have a difficult time understanding them.

It is the panel’s job to summarize ballot proposals and their arguments--both pro and con--for voters with no more than an eighth-grade education. The simplified language, if approved by the council, then accompanies the more technical version in the information packet mailed to registered voters.

Tamara Metcalf, a legislative analyst for the city, said the committee spent considerable time trying to simplify the language of the campaign contribution measure. Metcalf, one of the committee members, said that because of its complexity, not all of its provisions were covered in the summary.

Called Misleading

Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores said the summary was misleading because it said that candidates “could only raise funds for the city office they are seeking” without explaining that a candidate could also set up a campaign committee to run for another office. Flores added that the language said that candidates must give up surplus campaign money without explaining that they can keep $5,000.

Metcalf said the committee believes that the inclusion of the $5,000 exclusion “would open a whole can of worms” about what the money could be spent on, so a decision was made to exclude it from the final version.

Voting to include the simplified summary were council members Braude, Wachs, John Ferraro, Joy Picus, Peggy Stevenson and Pat Russell. Opposed were Flores, David Cunningham, Hal Bernson, Gilbert Lindsay and Arthur Snyder. Council members Ernani Bernardi, Robert Farrell, Howard Finn and Zev Yaroslavsky were absent.