Common Cause Presses Campaign Financing Fight

Expecting little action from the Legislature again this session to curb the escalating cost of political campaigns, Common Cause is seeking to revive a public financing initiative that was disqualified last year and place it on the ballot in June, 1988.

As legislative committees hold hearings on a variety of campaign spending proposals, two dozen Common Cause workers are poring through petitions filed last year to find valid signatures overlooked by election officials when they ruled that the initiative fell short by 6,795 names.

Already, leaders of the citizens lobbying group say they have found more than 6,000 of the needed signatures and predict they will have the remainder by mid-June. They also have won assurances from Secretary of State March Fong Eu that she will certify the measure for the 1988 ballot once they reach the number needed to qualify for last fall’s election.

“Within the next several weeks we will have finished demonstrating that we should have been on the November ballot,” said Steve Barrow, a lobbyist for Common Cause. “It’s fairly clear we’re going to be on the ballot in 1988.”

Competing Proposals

The initiative, which also has the backing of the state Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women Voters, is one of several proposals designed to reduce the influence of campaign contributions on elected state officials.

The proposed ballot measure would restrict the amount of money that individuals or groups could contribute to legislative campaigns, set voluntary limits on election spending and provide some matching public funds for candidates who agree to abide by the spending limits.

Meanwhile, at least four bills are being introduced in the Legislature this year to accomplish similar goals. A bill by Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), which has cleared two committees and moved to the Senate floor, has made the most progress so far. It would set limits for contributions and campaign expenditures, ban transfers of money between candidates and provide partial public financing of campaigns. Lockyer’s bill, however, would apply only to general elections, not primary campaigns.

2 Bills Held Up

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) is preparing to introduce a bill this week that would include contribution and spending limits, public financing and a ban on transfers between candidates, a spokeswoman for the Speaker said. Last year, the Speaker could not persuade his own house to approve a similar bill. But this year, if he cannot win passage, he has pledged to put it on the ballot himself and already has raised $300,000 for the effort.

Last week, the Assembly Elections Committee, showing a reluctance to use tax money to pay for campaigns, held up two other bills, one by Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) and one by Assemblywoman Jackie Speier (D-South San Francisco), that would have set voluntary spending limits and provided for public financing.

Speier, who as a former San Mateo County supervisor was bound by a $500 individual contribution limit in races for local office, said after the hearing that she was disappointed by the unwillingness of committee members to change the state’s campaign finance system.

“It is so important for us to have meaningful campaign reform to elevate the stature of this Legislature and how it does business,” the first-year lawmaker said. “I really think there’s the potential for this issue to blow up around us if we don’t have some meaningful reform.”

Advocates of the various campaign spending limit proposals say action is needed to cut the soaring costs of running for office and reduce the dependency of legislators on special-interest groups that finance the bulk of campaign spending.

Last year, candidates running in 100 Senate and Assembly races spent $58 million to win election, with much of the money coming from special interests that have a stake in bills before the Legislature. Earlier this month, candidates running in a special election to fill a Senate seat in the 33rd District spent about $3 million on that race alone.

The vulnerability of some lawmakers to special-interest influence was demonstrated earlier this year by the conviction of former Assemblyman Bruce Young (D-Norwalk) on mail fraud charges. Young was a key figure in the influence-peddling scandal sparked by the attempts of W. Patrick Moriarty to win approval of legislation favoring his fireworks manufacturing company.

The most controversial element of the campaign reform proposals has been the plan to use taxpayers’ money to help finance campaigns.

Such a plan is opposed by many legislators--mainly Republicans, but also some Democrats. More crucially, it also is opposed by Gov. George Deukmejian, who argues that the taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for election campaigns. In 1984, Deukmejian vetoed a bill by Lockyer that contained a public financing provision.

Proponents of public financing, however, point out that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that government does not have the power to restrict spending by candidates. In order to curb spending, the state legally can only impose a voluntary spending limit and then subsidize campaigns with public funds as an inducement to abide by the limit.

The Common Cause initiative, adopting the method used to finance presidential campaigns, would allow taxpayers to check a box on their income tax returns designating that $3 of their tax payment go to subsidize political campaigns.

$9-Million Forecast

As much as $9 million in tax money could be raised this way, although the measure’s sponsors estimate that $4.5 million would be sufficient to provide the matching funds. Money left over after each election would be returned to the general fund.

Public financing advocates like Barrow of Common Cause argue that the state already indirectly subsidizes elections by allowing taxpayers to deduct contributions to political campaigns from their taxes. This tax break, most frequently taken by wealthier taxpayers, costs the state $2 million in lost revenue and would be eliminated by the initiative.

Last year, sponsors of the initiative collected more than 600,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot, but election officials in counties where the petitions were filed certified only 387,040 signatures. With 393,835 needed, the measure was prevented from going on the ballot last year.

Contending that the initiative was kept off the ballot in error, Common Cause is seeking to have it qualified for the next statewide election by finding enough valid signatures among those rejected by county officials.

Putting it on the next ballot could raise at least one legal question, since the measure, as written now, would take effect Jan. 1, 1987--long before it would be voted on. But Barrow said the organization’s lawyers view this as a technicality that can be easily resolved.