Taxes to Go to Sacramento County Races

Without fanfare, Sacramento County supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved California’s first law allowing use of tax money to help finance political campaigns.

“I believe this ordinance will be one of the most important decisions this board has made in a generation,” Supervisor Ted Sheedy said before the board voted 5-0 for the measure. “It’s good government.”

The ordinance is the first public financing system adopted by a county in the country, according to Sheedy’s office and Robert Stern, general counsel for the California Commission on Campaign Financing, a nonprofit research organization.

The federal government uses tax money to help pay for presidential campaigns and limits contributions to presidential and congressional candidates to $1,000 from an individual and $5,000 from a political action committee.

Seattle, Wash., Tucson, Ariz., and 12 states also have some sort of public financing system for their elections, Stern said.

Restrictions Urged

But California does not have public financing, spending limits or contribution limits for state candidates, and spending in state races has increased sharply in recent years, triggering calls for some kind of restrictions.

About 36 local governments in the state have campaign donation limits, according to the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission.

The Sacramento County ordinance is unique because it includes voluntary public financing and spending limits, as well as mandatory contribution limits.

The ordinance, authorized by a ballot measure approved by county voters Nov. 4, will allow candidates for the Board of Supervisors to collect up to $37,500 in tax money per election to help finance their campaigns.

The tax funds will be used to match, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, private contributions of $250 or less that a candidate receives during an election year.

To qualify for the money, candidates will have to agree to a $75,000-per-election spending limit, raise at least $10,000 in contributions of $250 or less from people other than themselves, their spouses or their dependent children and have an opponent who has raised or spent at least $10,000.

Gifts Limited

The ordinance also will limit contributions in election years to $500 per person per candidate and $1,000 per organization per candidate.

Contributions in non-election years will be limited to $250.

A candidate or incumbent can receive no more than $7,500 in contributions during a non-election year.

During public hearings last month, critics condemned the Sacramento ordinance as a welfare program for politicians.

Steve Barrow, a lobbyist for Common Cause, a citizens group interested in campaign issues, said, however, that the Sacramento measure is the type of law that is needed to curb high campaign spending and reduce the potential influence of major campaign donors.

“We . . . want to stop the (campaign spending) arms race. . . ,” he said, “and to do that you’ve got to have spending limits. Constitutionally (under court rulings) you cannot have spending limits without public financing.”

The Sacramento County ordinance is part of a trend among local governments in the state to enact tougher campaign finance laws, according to Stern.

‘Feeling the Pressure’

“We’ve seen an awful lot of activity at the local level,” he said. “More and more every year are adopting these things. The local officials are really feeling the pressure or perhaps feeling the need.”

Local donation limits range as low as $50 in some smaller communities, according to a Fair Political Practices Commission report issued last year. Typical limits run in the $250 to $1,000 range.

The closest the state has come to adopting a public financing law is a 5-year-old statute that allows people, through a checkoff system on tax forms, to earmark $1, $5, $10 or $25 of their state income tax refunds as donations to a political party. The state funnels the money to the political party of the taxpayer’s choice instead of returning the funds.

For 1985, California taxpayers used the checkoff system to give a total of $233,316 to the five political parties recognized by the state, according to Jim Reber, a spokesman for the Franchise Tax Board.

A bill that included partial public financing and spending limits for legislative races was vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian in 1984. He contended that most voters oppose such systems, but nearly 62% of Sacramento County voters supported enactment of a public financing system in November.