The State - News from Dec. 1, 1987

A federal appellate court upheld the dismissal of a racketeering suit filed by the late Howard Jarvis charging that legal services groups illegally spent federal funds to oppose a 1980 Jarvis initiative to cut state income tax rates. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier District Court conclusion that the claims, even if true, did not constitute racketeering as defined under federal law. A federal fact-finder has found that the Los Angeles-based Western Center on Law and Poverty spent about $61,000 in federal funds on the measure, but concluded that the money was used primarily to gather information about the likely effects of the initiative in order to tell clients about it. The initiative was later defeated.