3 Views on Hedgecock and Troubles He Faces

This city’s people are the victims of their own law. Let’s fix it! That law was the one passed to reduce the influence of money on campaigns by limiting to $250 the amount that could come from any one source, including the candidate’s own pocket.

The law might have worked just fine--Lord knows San Diego has much to fear from moneyed interests--if the Supreme Court hadn’t found unconstitutional the part limiting the use of the candidate’s own money.

Roger Hedgecock had two logical choices at that point: either to forget the idea of running for mayor or to find a way to mount a campaign against the overwhelming personal resources of his opposition.

Roger is a smart, ambitious, hard-working--and most of all effective--no-nonsense visionary, too concerned and too wrapped up in San Diego to miss a chance to guide its future, but much too wise a realist to enter a contest with little or no chance of winning. He and/or his campaign managers and supporters found a way to even the economic odds in the ’83 campaign through the firm that handled it.

There is little doubt in the wake of near-unanimous jury opinions that the mayor-to-be knowingly broke the letter of the law. But what about the reality of that wrongdoing when the Supreme Court--by allowing passage of half a law while declaring the other half unconstitutional--inadvertently reversed the law’s intent.

It seems obvious that the real problem is not so much with the man or with the system as with a law that favors wealthy candidates, in exact opposition to its original intent.

Enough! Roger Hedgecock is no criminal--nor is he a wide-eyed innocent. He and the prosecution need to sit down and work out a punishment that fits the crime. And we all need to help find a constitutional solution to the real problem--the law--so that the legal system can work as intended: of, by and for the people.

JACK RECHT

Del Mar