Time to Put Brakes on Speakers’ Gravy Train

It’s a scene as American as apple pie and baseball--the local elected official visiting a class of students to share with them his insights about the workings of government. Norman Rockwell might have painted it for a Saturday Evening Post cover.

But in a perverse updating of that tradition, State Sen. Wadie Deddeh (D-Chula Vista) last year collected $10,000 for his visits to the campuses of the San Diego Community College District. Deddeh was paid the money by the district’s private foundation, which uses contributed funds in support of the district, for making 10 speeches to students and to a senior citizens’ group.

Deddeh said he did not insist on being paid, but, “if someone wants to give me a check for $500 or $1,000, I’m not going to say, ‘No, I don’t accept it.’ ”

In fact, the foundation has created a regular gravy train for key legislators, ladling out fees of up to $2,000 a speech for the likes of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) and Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti (D-Los Angeles). Five of the legislators brought to town sit on either the Senate or Assembly Education Committee. In all, the foundation paid 16 legislators of both parties $33,000 last year--$6,000 to Roberti--according to the lawmakers’ financial disclosure forms. No other education institution in the state, public or private, spent so much to hear legislators talk.

College District Chancellor Garland Peed, who created the foundation and serves as its chief executive officer, says the function of the speakers program is to bring information into the community by having the legislators meet with students, faculty and business and civic groups. Any influence the district gains in Sacramento as a result is secondary, he said. He acknowledged, however, that the program does help the district to “establish an identity” with the legislators.

We just bet it does, and we suspect Peed gets his phone calls returned when he’s in search of a speaker. But the kind of identification that is being created in Sacramento--and now in San Diego--may not be exactly what an institution of higher learning would covet.

Deddeh and Peed say the fees the senator received last year were justified by the considerable effort Deddeh put into speech preparation. This is an insult to the public’s intelligence as well as to every elected official who visits classrooms for free.

The practice of doling out such handsome fees to legislators can only come across to the public as an attempt to buy influence in the state Capitol. The district should have more pride in its image and its integrity than to let itself become known as a sugar daddy for politicians.