Sacramento Breakdown

More than 20 years ago, the late state Assembly Speaker Jesse M. Unruh made famous the dictum that “money is the mother’s milk of politics.” Since then, money has become the whole cow. To follow the money is to discover which interests get special treatment in the halls of the California Legislature.

Amazingly, the governor of California and opposition Democratic leaders in the Legislature have united in an effort to preserve the present corrupting system of runaway campaign finance. After several months of planning behind the scenes, Gov. George Deukmejian and the Democratic, and Republican, leaders issued an orchestrated announcement condemning Proposition 68 on the June 7 ballot, an initiative measure that would impose reasonable limits on state legislative campaign contributions and spending.

Remember that Deukmejian and Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown Jr. and Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti barely speak to each other when it comes to the real concerns of the people of California. All their animosities suddenly vanish, however, when there is a threat to the campaign-finance money machine that effectively insulates powerful incumbent lawmakers from any challenge. Their stated reasons for opposing the initiative, drafted after two years of work by a distinguished citizens’ commission, defy reason and credibility.

Deukmejian attacks the modest public-financing provision of Proposition 68, which the legislative analyst says would cost less than $10 million a year out of a budget of $44 billion, by declaring such dollars would be better used for education, criminal justice or transportation. But far more than $10 million a year would be saved for use on those matters if the Legislature was not so beholden to its fat-cat contributors and their causes.

Speaker Brown claims he wants an even-tougher campaign-reform law. But the Legislature will not pass any effective reform on its own without the concerted effort of Brown and others. No such effort has been visible.

Roberti says Proposition 68 would favor the wealthy by barring legislative leaders from raising funds on behalf of their own chosen candidates. Nonsense. Proposition 68 would give hundreds of truly qualified candidates a chance to buck incumbents for the first time in years.

And Republican Senate leader Ken Maddy makes the most outlandish claim of all in arguing that Proposition 68 would “allow extremist candidates such as Nazi Party and Ku Klux Klan members to spread their hateful messages with tax dollars.” Rubbish. Senate and Assembly candidates would have to demonstrate broad public support through their own fund raising before they could qualify for a dollar of public campaign funds. Better yet, there would be an emphasis on generating campaign dollars locally rather than from the Sacramento money machine controlled by legislative leaders.

State government is breaking down. Never-ending campaign fund-raising demands too much time and too much energy on the part of legislators, and too many obligations to contributors. The governor and the leadership of the Legislature should be at the head of the pack demanding reform. Rather, they have joined in unholy alliance to launch a strident and misleading attack against the best hope for reform that Californians may see for years to come.