Brown Alters Panel, Wins on Campaign Spending Bill

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) narrowly won approval Wednesday of his legislation to limit campaign spending after obtaining the needed votes by naming three new members to a crucial committee and watering down his own measure.

The Assembly Elections and Reapportionment Committee, its membership altered several times during the course of its meeting, finally approved Brown’s bill, which would provide public financing for legislative candidates and would limit the amount of money those candidates could receive and spend.

Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-La Habra), one of the three new committee members appointed by Brown, arrived 30 minutes after debate on the bill had ended and cast the deciding vote.

“I’m as surprised to be on the committee today as you all are,” Johnson said during a brief speech before he voted. “I have some real problems with the specifics of the bill, but it is my intention to vote aye with the hope that as we move the issue along there may be some opportunity to reach a bipartisan agreement.”

Passed by Bare Minimum

The measure, approved by a vote of 6 to 2--the bare minimum needed for passage, now goes to the Assembly Ways and Means Committee.

The complex bill would place a variety of restrictions on political spending, including a limit of $1,000 on individual contributions and limits of $2,500 for corporations, unions and most political action committees. A limit of $5,000 would be placed on campaign contributions from political action committees that receive their contributions in amounts of $50 or less.

The measure would prohibit each Assembly candidate from spending more than $225,000 in the general election and each Senate candidate from spending more than $350,000 if they accept public financing. An Assembly candidate could receive up to $112,500 in taxpayers’ money and a Senate candidate could get up to $175,000.

In an attempt to encourage candidates to raise money within their districts, donations of up to $250 would be matched 5 to 1 with public dollars while those from outside the district would be matched on only a 3-1 basis.

Brown, facing the prospect of defeat on one of his major legislative efforts of the year, amended the bill to remove the proposed spending and contribution limits for primary campaigns--an amendment favoring incumbents who generally can raise more money than challengers.

“There were some legislators who did not like the idea that there might be more people who might be running for public office than would ordinarily run,” Brown explained afterwards. “I needed to get the votes to get my bill out. I don’t live in an ideal world.”

Brown also took the extraordinary step of putting three new members on the committee to vote for his bill. In addition to Johnson, the Speaker placed Democratic Assemblymen Patrick Johnston of Stockton and Thomas M. Hannigan of Fairfield on the 10-member panel after obtaining assurances of their support for the measure.

“All three of those people voted for my bill and it takes six votes to get it out,” Brown said in a hallway interview. “I wanted to make sure I had a full cadre of committee members and, in view of the fact that I could make the appointments, I tested the waters as to their availability and interest in my issue.”

One of the three new members filled an existing vacancy on the panel. The other two replaced Democrats Gray Davis of Los Angeles and Pete Chacon of San Diego, both of whom were not available for the meeting, Brown said. Davis, who is a candidate for state controller, and Chacon had been members of the committee when it held eight hours of public hearings on Brown’s bill.

It was the second day in a row that Brown had used his power as Speaker to reshuffle committee membership to secure passage of his own legislation. On Tuesday, he replaced a member of the Finance and Insurance Committee to win approval of his bill that could force down insurance rates.