D.A. Won’t Fight Dismissal of Indictment Against Clarke

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner will not appeal a judge’s dismissal of an indictment alleging that Rep. Bobbi Fiedler’s fiance and campaign manager tried to bribe state Sen. Ed Davis into dropping out of the Republican U.S. Senate primary, it was announced Friday.

In deciding not to pursue the case against Paul Clarke, Reiner’s top aides said they still disagree with Superior Court Judge Robert T. Altman, who ruled last month that the district attorney’s office had misinterpreted the statute under which both Fiedler and her campaign manager were indicted.

But Assistant Dist. Atty. Curt Livesay said Reiner believes that the wording of the statute, adopted in the late 1800s and revised in the mid-1970s, is ambiguous and should be clarified by the state Legislature rather than reviewed by the courts.

In letters made public by his office, Reiner asked Assemblyman Johan Klehs (D-San Leandro), chairman of the Assembly Committee on Elections and Reapportionment, and Sen. Paul Carpenter (D-Cypress), chairman of the Senate Elections Committee, to examine the statutes governing candidates’ behavior in order to specifically determine “what conduct, if any, should be prohibited.”

Klehs, who received the letter Friday, said by telephone he also believes that the question “is one that needs to be resolved.” Klehs said he planned to hold interim hearings “on this statute and the whole broader issue” some time this year.

Carpenter was out of the country Friday, but Georgette Imura, consultant to the elections committee, said, “My guess is that if Assemblyman Klehs is agreeable, I’m sure Sen. Carpenter would participate in such a hearing.”

Clarke’s attorney, John Yzurdiaga, said Reiner’s letter was designed to mask the fact that “the district attorney misread the statute” and would have lost his appeal.

In a case that drew national attention, Fiedler (R-Northridge) and Clarke were indicted by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury Jan. 23 on charges they violated the state Election Code by offering a $100,000 campaign contribution to Davis in an attempt to persuade the Valencia legislator to give up his U.S. Senate race.

Judge Disagreed

Charges against Fiedler were dismissed Feb. 26 after both sides told Altman there was insufficient evidence against her. In tossing out the Clarke case, the judge noted that the statute prohibits advancing, paying, soliciting or receiving money in exchange for withdrawing from a race but makes no mention of an “offer.” He disagreed with the district attorney’s position that “advance” and “solicit” have the same meaning as “offer.”

At the time, Reiner said the judge’s ruling was based on a technicality. On Friday, however, Livesay described Altman as “a judge we hold in high esteem” and said: “It’s not every day that we have a judge disagree with us. When a judge disagrees with us, we carefully review it.”

Reiner’s letter to Klehs and Carpenter itemizes several issues of public policy he says were raised by the Fiedler-Clarke case: “Is the conduct which is the subject matter of the allegation routine practice among candidates for office? Should this conduct be illegal? Is the payment of a campaign committee debt the type of benefit contemplated in the law, or should the law only proscribe personal enrichment?”

These issues, the letter continues, “are not principally legal questions and for that reason they are not capable of being resolved by the courts.”

Commenting on the final chapter of his case, Clarke said in a prepared statement released by the Fiedler campaign office: “On a personal level, I feel I’ve been a victim of a serious abuse of the judicial process by desperate politicians who exploited a government agency.”