$32 Million Spent on ’84 Initiatives : FPPC Head Renews Call for Campaign Spending Reform

Supporters and opponents of six measures on last November’s ballot spent $32.2 million in attempts to sway voters, the state Fair Political Practices Commission reported Wednesday.

The agency said campaigns that ended in the defeat of an initiative backed by Gov. George Deukmejian and another sponsored by tax crusader Howard Jarvis were the most expensive in history when inflation is not taken into account.

Both campaigns triggered more than $10 million in spending. The Deukmejian-backed measure would have revamped the system for drawing legislative and congressional districts. The Jarvis initiative was aimed at closing loopholes in Proposition 13, his successful 1978 property tax limitation measure.

Figuring Inflation

The commission noted that when inflation is figured in, the most expensive initiative battle in history was a 1956 gas and oil conservation measure that generated a big spending campaign by the oil industry.

Spending on Senate and Assembly campaigns, as projected earlier, hit the $50-million mark in 1984, setting a record. Three Senate campaigns topped the $1-million mark.

Commission Chairman Dan Stanford, in releasing the latest in the agency’s periodic updates of campaign spending, used the ever-escalating costs of running political campaigns as a reason to renew his call for campaign spending reform.

“The system (of financing campaigns) is in serious trouble and in desperate need for reform,” said Stanford, who is backing legislation in the Senate that would limit contributions and prohibit transfers of campaign contributions from one candidate to another.

Stanford predicted that if the Legislature does not act soon, two or three political reform initiatives could find their way onto a ballot by 1986.

He said that the ability of incumbents to raise huge campaign war chests made most of 100 legislative races last year uncompetitive--angering citizens’ groups and raising questions about the influence of special interests on the legislative process.

The most expensive was in Northern California’s 1st Senate District, where $1.2 million was spent as Sen. John Doolittle (R-Citrus Heights) defeated Sen. Ray Johnson, a Roseville independent.

Other Senate campaigns that hit the $1.1-million mark were in San Francisco’s 3rd District, where Democratic challenger Lia Belli lost to veteran Republican Sen. Milton Marks, and in the 11th District, where Republican Becky Morgan of Los Altos Hills defeated former Sen. Arlen Gregorio, a San Mateo Democrat.

$781,000 Assembly Race

The most expensive Assembly race occurred in Orange County’s 72nd Assembly District, where $781,000 was spent in a contest in which Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove) barely defeated Republican challenger Richard Longshore, the report showed.

The election analysis showed that Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) spent $2.5 million during the November general election as he spread campaign contributions out to other Democrats. His counterpart in the Senate, President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), spent $991,890.

Deukmejian spent $1.7 million during the last campaign, most of it in support of his unsuccessful redistricting initiative, the FPPC said.

Stanford said that spending on ballot propositions showed that “the initiative process in California has become an industry, a growing industry.”

The report indicated that those for and against Jarvis’ latest property tax initiative spent $10.5 million. The initiative, Proposition 36, was defeated. The Jarvis side spent $8.8 million, while those opposed spent $1.7 million.

Pro and con spending on Deukmejian’s reapportionment measure totaled $10.3 million, the study showed. Proponents spent $6 million, while $4.3 million was spent by opponents.

$6 Million for Lottery Bill

The two-inch-thick FPPC report also shows that $6 million was spent on the lottery initiative, Proposition 37, which passed.

Lesser amounts were spent on the other three initiatives--$4 million on Proposition 41, which would have cut welfare benefits; $1.5 million on Proposition 40, the campaign expenditure limitation measure, and $120,000 on Proposition 38, which would have required ballots, ballot pamphlets and other election materials to be printed in English only.