Mojonnier’s $10,000 Gift Not Illegal

A prison guards group did not violate any state law when it gave Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier a $10,000 award for leaving her sickbed and voting for a bill to locate a new state prison in Los Angeles, an official in the attorney general’s office said.

Scott Thorpe, supervising deputy attorney general, said a payment as a reward for a legislator’s vote is legal if the legislator has not agreed in advance to vote for the bill in exchange for the money.

“As long as there’s no agreement, there’s nothing in the law that addresses that,” Thorpe said.

Mojonnier, an Encinitas Republican, reported the money this week as a speaking fee, or honorarium, on her annual statement of economic interests filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission.

But Don Novey, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., which gave her the money in November, said the $10,000 was not payment for Mojonnier’s speech but an award because she went “above and beyond the call of duty” to vote for the measure after being brought to the Assembly floor in a wheelchair.

Lobbying Heavily

The correctional officers were lobbying heavily for the bill because two prisons already constructed in San Diego and Stockton could not open until a site was chosen for a Los Angeles lockup. Hundreds of prison guards assigned to the new prison were in limbo, waiting for a break in the legislative deadlock.

Before her vote July 15, Mojonnier had been away from the Capitol for five weeks recovering from a hysterectomy.

The bill failed passage by three votes that day but was reconsidered July 16 and amended. Mojonnier voted for the measure again, and it was approved with four votes to spare.

Payments as large as the one Mojonnier received would be outlawed by two initiative measures that have qualified for the June 7 ballot. The two measures--which are aimed mainly at limiting campaign contributions and the transfer of money from one political committee to another--address the issue of gifts and payments to legislators in slightly different ways.

One measure, backed by a private campaign reform group, would limit a legislator’s gifts and speaking fees to $2,000 from each source over a two-year period.

The other, supported by a group of state legislators, would limit the gifts and fees from each source to $1,000 a year, but would exempt travel expenses and meals for trips paid for by private individuals or groups.