Vote to Double Limit Is Rescinded : Task Force Backs $250 Election Donation Cap

A municipal task force studying city election laws voted Friday to rescind its earlier recommendation to double the limit on individual contributions in local political campaigns, and voted to instead support the existing $250 cap.

Businessmen who bankroll a large share of local campaigns had criticized the task force’s decision last month to recommend raising the limit on individual contributions to $500, complaining that business people already were overburdened by candidates’ requests for support.

Though the review panel could again reconsider its recommendations at a final meeting next month, it is now on record in favor of maintaining the $250 cap for contributors, but opening donations to corporations as well as individuals.

Some campaign fund-raisers, including several members of the task force, had argued that the limit, unchanged since its adoption 12 years ago, ignores a tremendous increase in the cost of running for office.

The 8-3 vote Friday to keep the $250 cap reversed an earlier 8-7 decision by the 18-member task force. Several members who had supported the increase in individual contributions were absent from the meeting Friday.

Frank De Vore, a business consultant, led the effort to reverse the earlier recommendation, which he had supported in previous task force votes.

DeVore said he believed the City Council, which will review the task force’s recommendations, was more likely to permit corporate contributions if the individual contributions continued to be limited to $250.

Further, he said, “I saw no reason why personal contributions should not be limited to the same amount” as corporate donations.

But Nancy MacHutchin, a campaign fund-raiser, said the task force’s switch Friday meant that the panel would not be recommending any significant reforms.

“My feeling is the almost one year we’ve all been working on it has all gone down the drain,” she said.

The task force majority, MacHutchin said, failed to “take into account we’re the only city in the state that has such low contribution limits, and also the only city that’s gone through major political scandal, which in some ways was linked to campaign contribution limits.”

The task force was proposed by Councilman William Jones in the wake of then-Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s indictment on charges he conspired to circumvent the $250 limit by funneling tens of thousands of dollars to his mayoral campaign through a political consulting firm.

DeVore acknowledged that members of the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce and the Building Industry Assn. of San Diego County had lobbied him to support the $250 limit, but he said his decision to change his vote was his own.

Other task force members said the vote to maintain the $250 cap reflected their feeling that there was no evidence that the current limit made it too difficult to finance campaigns.

But Mark Zerbe, San Diego coordinator for Common Cause, said most task force members favored both raising the cap and permitting corporate donations, but settled for just the latter change because politics made it unlikely the City Council would approve both.

“People are very concerned that the council, particularly in light of the mayoral election, would be very hesitant to approve any recommendations which included raising the contribution limit,” Zerbe said.

By coming out in favor of corporate contributions, the task force made “the net result of our proposals negative,” Zerbe said. Common Cause plans to issue its own report on campaign law reforms next month, he added.