Donor Verification Scramble Is On : San Diego Tightens Campaign Contribution Requirement

David Lewis, a prominent San Diego political consultant, made a discouraging discovery Wednesday. As he prepared to meet the Sunday deadline for reporting financial contributions to a City Council candidate who is his client, he found that only six of the more than 200 donations were accompanied by the information on the donor that is required by a campaign reform measure that goes into effect next week.

Lewis’ office is busily rounding up that information, because under terms of the amendment to the city’s campaign ordinance that was passed by the City Council Tuesday, the occupation or place of employment and home address of each person contributing more than $100 to a municipal campaign must be reported to the state within 10 days of its collection. If that information is unobtainable during that time period, or withheld, the donor’s check must be returned, uncashed.

Lynn Montgomery, spokeswoman for the state Fair Political Practices Commission in Sacramento, said San Diego is the first California city to adopt such stringent requirements on campaign donations. The law was the first proposed by the Campaign Review Task Force, which is reviewing San Diego’s election laws--including the controversial provision forbidding contributions of more than $250 to a campaign.

“Nobody else has that reporting requirement,” Montgomery said. “We see it as a good step. We’ll be interested in watching that experiment and see what it produces.”

Reporting the residence and employment information of donors giving more than $100 to municipal campaigns has always been required by the state Political Reform Act. But the provision has been violated repeatedly, Montgomery said, because it has been difficult to enforce, since the state law does not require that the information be reported immediately upon collection of a donation, giving candidates the leeway to wait until the final disclosure period--after an election--to tell the address and workplace of contributors.

“We’ve had to be somewhat loose in allowing contributions without the proper background information on the donors if the candidate made the best effort to get it,” Montgomery said.

Proper reporting of background information on donors became a controversial issue in San Diego when it played a key role in the filing of felony perjury and conspiracy charges against Mayor Roger Hedgecock. The case is currently being heard in Superior Court.

An FPPC investigation into Hedgecock’s 1983 mayoral campaign uncovered instances in which donors’ names reported by Hedgecock were not the same names of those who wrote checks to the campaign. In addition, background investigations turned up instances in which large numbers of employees from major corporations gave to Hedgecock’s campaign without listing their affiliations to the companies--a possible violation of the city’s law forbidding corporate donations.

Hedgecock has staunchly maintained that his failure to fully report the donor information did not constitute an intentional violation of the law--and that the campaigns of his 1983 opponent Maureen O’Connor (whose race was managed by Lewis) and Richard Carlson, who was defeated by the mayor in the 1984 election, were similarly guilty of failing to meet the provision.

Mark Zerbe, coordinator of the San Diego chapter of Common Cause, pushed for the campaign reform, charging late last year that council members Bill Cleator, William Jones, Uvaldo Martinez, Mike Gotch and Gloria McColl all had failed to meet the requirements of the disclosure laws, as did unsuccessful council candidates Bob Filner, Mike Garret and Celia Ballesteros. Zerbe was not available to comment on the council’s action.

Lewis and Montgomery each said the law might make collecting donations at least slightly more difficult.

“Some people are squeamish about giving any personal information when they’re giving money,” Montgomery said. “It’ll be a new challenge for the fund-raisers.”