S.D. Council Panel Acts Cautiously on Campaign Reforms

Moving gingerly into the controversial area of campaign-law reform, a San Diego City Council committee on Wednesday reviewed proposed new contribution and disclosure requirements put forth by Mayor Maureen O’Connor and a blue-ribbon task force. But the panel postponed action until spring.

In the first step toward updating the city’s 13-year-old election ordinance, the council’s Rules Committee directed a task force that studied local campaign laws for more than a year to reconsider some of its key recommendations--as well as analyze O’Connor’s recently proposed reform package--and report back to the panel within 60 days.

Perhaps the council members’ most sweeping request to the task force was a proposal that the group study the feasibility of establishing an overall spending limit for City Council and mayoral elections--a course which, if ultimately adopted, could place the council on a collision course with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Task force officials warned the council members that establishing a campaign spending limit could precipitate a lengthy and costly court battle. However, several council members expressed interest in at least pursuing that option, and Councilman William Jones pointedly told the task force’s leaders: “Tell us how we can do something, rather than why we can’t.”

Wednesday’s committee hearing ended nearly a year of frustration for the 18-member task force, established in late 1984 in the wake of then-Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s indictment on campaign-law violations to examine local election laws. Hedgecock later was convicted on 13 felony counts by a Superior Court jury and resigned from office, but has appealed that verdict.

Last March, the task force issued a 60-page report detailing proposed changes ranging from allowing now-banned corporate campaign contributions to mandatory audits for high-spending campaigns and new financial disclosure requirements. However, the task force was unable to gain a council hearing on its report for 11 months until O’Connor, who chairs the Rules Committee, unveiled her reform package last week.

The centerpiece of O’Connor’s plan is a proposal that a council member be prohibited from voting on matters involving businesses whose officers have cumulatively donated more than $1,000 to the member in the previous year. Under another provision of her plan, which O’Connor argues could ensure that the council’s decisions “are not unduly influenced by campaign contributions,” council members who received more than $500 within a year from any applicant seeking council action also would be required to disclose that fact on the council’s docket.

Other council members have reacted skeptically to O’Connor’s plan, complaining that it is unworkable, would dramatically increase paper-work requirements, and implies that their votes conceivably could be “bought” for $1,000.

In light of that criticism, O’Connor, hoping to prevent her plan from dying a quick legislative death, declined to seek Rules Committee action on her proposals Wednesday. Rather, she simply asked the council members, and the task force, to review her ideas in preparation for a hearing in the spring.

Several members of the task force testified before the committee to highlight some of their major recommendations.

Despite an oft-heard argument that the city’s $250-per-person contribution limit should be increased to reflect the inflation of the past decade, the task force recommended preserving the current ceiling. However, the panel, in arguably its most controversial suggested change of current law, also proposed that corporations and partnerships be allowed to contribute to candidates, within the $250 limit.

Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller has threatened to refuse to enforce the law if organizational donations are permitted, a fact that Councilman Jones emphasized in asking the task force’s chairman, Mark Nelson, to reconsider that specific proposal.

The council panel also asked the task force to:

- Determine the cost associated with its recommendations that campaigns in which more than $100,000 is spent be automatically audited, and that random audits should be conducted on 10% of the races in which contributions are below that threshold.

- Reexamine its proposal that candidates who receive more than $10,000 in the final week before an election be required to file a special financial disclosure report. That plan is designed to alert voters to major 11th-hour campaign contributions, but accountants argue that being required to prepare a financial disclosure statement on such short notice could lead to logistical nightmares and reporting errors.

“I share everyone’s idealism,” said Robert Miller Jr., whose local accounting firm handles nearly 80 campaigns. “But at the same time, we’re the poor devils in the trenches who are trying to comply. . . . It’s going to be almost impossible.”

- Closely study the legality and political practicality of a spending limit for city elections.

O’Connor, who adhered to a self-imposed $325,000 spending limit in last year’s special mayoral race, is one of the council’s strongest proponents of establishing contribution ceilings for city elections. Noting that she won last June despite being outspent more than 2-to-1 by her opponent, Councilman Bill Cleator, O’Connor argued Wednesday that a spending limit is “a good idea . . . that would force candidates to rely more on grass-roots campaigning” than advertising.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that, unless governments provide public financing for candidates, campaign spending limits unfairly restrict First Amendment rights. The high court’s position thus appears to leave the council with two choices if it wants to create a spending limit: subsidizing mayoral, council and city attorney candidates with public funds, or challenging the rulings.

Many political observers also contend that spending limits provide a major political edge to incumbents, who usually are better-known than their challengers and consequently, barring unusual circumstances, find it unnecessary to spend as much money in their campaigns. If a challenger cannot outspend an incumbent, the argument goes, he usually cannot hope to overcome the name recognition and other inherent benefits of incumbency.

Task force chairman Nelson, executive director of the San Diego Taxpayers Assn., explained that if the council decides against public financing of campaigns, it would have to “provide a very compelling case to convince the courts” that a spending limit is justified. Another member of the task force, law professor James Leahy, suggested that an argument could be made, for example, that democratic principles are being undermined because campaigns are too costly.

Nelson admitted that a court challenge “could be expensive and, obviously, the outcome would be uncertain,” but he described that scenario as a “fascinating opportunity” to determine how far local governments can go in trying to regulate campaign spending.