All Santa Monica Coalition Disbands

In the hearts and minds of its opponents, the All Santa Monica Coalition may always stand for moderate and conservative interests in politically volatile Santa Monica. But on paper, at least, the faction is kaput.

City Councilwoman Christine E. Reed, a coalition leader, announced last week that the group has formally terminated itself as a registered campaign committee. Reed said the coalition had outlived its usefulness in promoting candidates.

Cannot Collect Funds

“With an umbrella committee, you are marketing a name and not the people who are running for office,” Reed said. “And we felt we should admit that things have gotten out of hand in terms of expenses and campaign abuses.”

The decision to disband means that the coalition cannot collect money for candidates in this year’s elections, in which four of the seven council seats are up for grabs. The coalition is also prohibited from circulating campaign literature.

Reed said that coalition supporters remain committed to a moderate-to-conservative agenda and may informally back several candidates in November. But she does not foresee the type of well-heeled effort that has marked past campaigns, when the coalition engaged in heated battles with the liberal Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights for control of City Hall.

Councilman William Jennings, a Reed ally, said the coalition was never as cohesive or as ideologically attuned as Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, anyway.

“In between elections our people have always had a hard time focusing on politics,” Jennings said. “We’re not like SMRR (Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights), which does nothing but focus on their campaigns year-round.”

Reed described the disbanding decision as a move toward campaign reform. She said umbrella committees have adversely affected campaigns by driving up costs, obscuring the issues and blurring distinctions between candidates.

Reed’s comments mirror the conclusions reached last week by a nonprofit group called the California Commission on Campaign Financing. In a report titled “The War of the Slates,” the commission accused the city’s rival political factions of stockpiling funds and discouraging outside competition.

The commission noted that campaign expenditures have risen 1,300% in recent years, with the average candidate spending nearly $60,000 in 1986. The group also charged that both sides have engaged in dirty tricks.

Another Name

Reed said she agrees that campaigns are running out of control. With the coalition out of the picture, the councilwoman said she hopes that organizations will play a less prominent role in this year’s elections.

But Dennis Zane, a founder of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, said he doubts that the end of the coalition means an end to coalition-style politics. Zane said the same supporters may emerge under another name.

“We’ll just have to wait and see what the new incarnation of the anti-SMRR group is,” he said. “Either way, I can assure you SMRR will still be here.”

Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights and the All Santa Monica Coalition have been archenemies at election time for most of the 1980s. The liberal tenant faction came together in 1979 in support of the city’s rigid rent control law. The coalition was formed in opposition to the renter advocates in 1982.

The coalition, largely backed by business leaders and landlords, gained control of the council from Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights in 1984. But in 1986, both sides emerged with three council seats. Alan Katz, the seventh councilman, is an independent.

Katz, who first obtained his seat through an appointment, said the factions have made it virtually impossible for other outsiders to run for office.

The councilman echoed Zane’s prediction that another faction will rise in the coalition’s place unless campaign reform measures are enacted. Katz is promoting a plan that would do away with at-large elections in favor of numbered council seats.

“The fact that the coalition is disbanding just means that it will emerge under another name,” Katz said. “It may be the end of the coalition, but it will be replaced by something very similar unless we change the system.”

Herb Katz, the only coalition member who is facing reelection this year, will be the first to test the new system. He was out of town and could not be reached for comment, but Reed said she expects him to do well.

“I don’t think it will hurt him,” Reed said. “When you look at the history of this city, movements that have been concerned with city government and government issues have ebbed and flowed and existed under many different labels. . . . In Santa Monica you have a philosophical struggle. And in that sense, I don’t expect the struggle to change at all.’