Old Election Laws Are Still Democracy’s Best Protection

In light of the recent news stories and controversy surrounding the use of the California election code, which makes it illegal to offer a candidate money to withdraw from an election, I feel compelled to illustrate the importance of this law.

The American Revolution was fought so that we could elect the representatives who make our laws. We haven’t always held those laws in high regard and frequently suffered as a consequence. As a young Illinois legislator, Abraham Lincoln observed widespread disregard of the law. In 1837 he gave a speech, in Springfield, in which he said reverence for the law should be the political religion of the land. He believed that if some laws were disagreeable, they should be changed through the legislative process, not just disregarded.

The laws most important to the preservation of our freedom are those that guarantee and protect free elections: the right of each person to cast his vote in selecting state and federal officers, and in some cases the right to vote to change the laws. Any serious infringement of this process is a crime against democracy.

In 1893 the California State Assembly adopted “an act to promote the purity of elections . . . and to support the privilege of free suffrage.” This law was one of a series of measures enacted against election fraud. Violations in the statute included fraudulent voting and paying for votes. The 1893 statute made it a felony, with a penalty of from one to seven years in prison, for anyone who “directly or indirectly . . . causes to be paid, any money . . . to any other person in consideration of a person withdrawing as a candidate for a public office.”

We can only speculate on the reason for the 1893 law. The Legislature and the governor obviously believed that paying someone to withdraw as a candidate for public office was detrimental to the public interest. It is highly probable that the law was designed to prevent political bosses with large amounts of money at their disposal from limiting the public’s choice of candidates. It is also possible that the law was designed to prevent a wealthy candidate from inducing a competitor to withdraw.

In 1976, the elections code was completely overhauled on the recommendation of a statewide committee composed of constitutional experts, representatives from the attorney general’s office and virtually every district attorney in the state. The result of this enormous project was Assembly Bill 3683.

This bill removed some sections of the code that had been declared unconstitutional and others that were deadwood. Then it incorporated and expanded the 1893 law as Section 29305. This revision made it a crime to “receive” money in exchange for withdrawing from an election. Formerly, only the person making the payment, not the recipient, was guilty of a crime. The new statute made solicitation--the act of offering a payment--a crime. The revision made it a crime to offer money to keep a person from becoming a candidate, and included a sentence of up to three years for violations.

The current law emerged in its present form in 1977 in Assembly Bill 1020. These amendments clarified the Legislature’s intent to make it a crime for a person, acting through an agent, to offer or make a bribe.

Under Election Code section 29305, “a person shall not directly or through any other person advance, pay, solicit or receive . . . any money or other valuable consideration to or for the use of any person in order to induce a person not to become or to withdraw as a candidate for public office.” It is obvious from the history of this statute that it is not a piece of deadwood, but a law that has been expanded and improved several times in recent years. It is a law designed to keep king-makers, political bosses and wealthy candidates from narrowing the field of candidates from which the voters could choose. Not all states have this statute. Probably all of them should.

In New York, for example, it is a crime to affect a primary election through fraud, and as recently as 1978 a state assemblyman was convicted for offering a bribe to a primary opponent to withdraw from the race. California has had relatively clean elections compared to some states where the tyranny of political bosses has dominated the electoral process for decades.

Old laws, like old red wine, do not become less valuable with age. One particular law that I prize very dearly and that contains the Bill of Rights was enacted 197 years ago. Let’s keep California politics clean and out of the hands of the wealthy, the king-makers and the political bosses. Let us show reverence for our laws.