Curb Spending, Limit Influence-Peddling

When the state’s top political leaders recently announced their united opposition to Proposition 68, the campaign-reform initiative on the June ballot, they helped to clarify the political battle lines that have formed around the initiative.

Those battle lines do not pit Democrats against Republicans, or conservatives against liberals. They pit those who have the most at stake in today’s system of financing legislative campaigns--party leaders and major special-interest contributors--against a coalition of citizens’ groups and civic leaders who want the system changed.

The initiative would mandate dramatic changes in our electoral and political systems. Proposition 68 would promote equity in our politics by limiting and equalizing the spending by candidates. It would strengthen the role of the average individual contributor by limiting large contributions from special-interest groups. It would encourage electoral competition by establishing a state fund that would match modest contributions raised by candidates who agree to abide by limitations on their expenditures. The initiative would also ban the transfers of campaign funds from one politician to another, and would prohibit fund-raising in non-election years.

Support for Proposition 68 is broad-based, ranging from the California Business Roundtable, Sierra Club, Common Cause, League of Women Voters and the PTA, to several of the state’s most prominent elected officials, including Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.

In opposing Proposition 68, Gov. George Deukmejian and legislative party leaders Willie Brown, David Roberti, Pat Nolan and Ken Maddy have now officially placed themselves on the wrong side of a line dividing them from respected citizens’ groups.

The governor argued that the initiative would favor incumbents. Yet, under the present system, incumbents regularly collect millions of dollars while in office--almost exclusively from Sacramento-based lobbying groups--and before challengers have a chance to raise a dime. In the 1987 non-election year, for example, state legislative incumbents raised more than $25 million; their potential challengers raised $400,000.

With such a fund-raising advantage, it stands to reason that in 1986 not one state legislative incumbent who sought reelection lost. Clearly it’s hard to imagine a system more protective of incumbents than the one now in place.

The governor and other Republican opponents of Proposition 68 also decried the use of taxpayer dollars to help finance campaigns. Admittedly the public financing element, even though wholly voluntary, is the initiative’s most controversial provision. But the availability of public matching funds reduces a candidate’s reliance on special-interest contributors. Even more important, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the offer of matching funds to a candidate is the only constitutionally approved way to impose the critical spending limits.

Although they say that they are opposed to public financing, just last year Deukmejian, Nolan and Maddy voted for (or signed) legislation creating a new tax credit for political contributions. Under that new law, which could cost taxpayers as much as $18 million to $20 million a year, any Californian can get a $25 tax reduction for a contribution to any political candidate.

Such a tax credit is clearly a form of public financing. The Republican leaders’ support of the tax-credit proposal casts real doubt on the sincerity of their objection to Proposition 68’s use of public matching funds to help finance legislative campaigns.

The Democratic leaders’ opposition is no more persuasive. After sponsoring legislation almost identical to Proposition 68 for five years, Speaker Willie Brown has concluded--now that there is a real chance of its adoption--that its reforms do not go far enough.

The logic offered by the Proposition 68 opponents appears specious at best. The logic that does make sense is that these five leaders--who have been unable to agree on almost anything else in the past six years--see Proposition 68 as a direct threat to their primary means of maintaining their personal political influence.

No one in Sacramento raises more campaign dollars than this Gang of Five. Between 1985 and 1987 they received more than $33 million in campaign contributions. Many of their colleagues, as well as virtually all challengers in competitive races, are heavily dependent on the ability and willingness of these leaders to raise the funds to pay for their campaigns. During the 1986 elections, for example, Nolan, Roberti and Brown transferred approximately $7 million to candidates in targeted races. Those “transferred” funds came almost exclusively from Sacramento-based lobbying groups that wanted and expected to get something for their money.

There is a heavy price to be paid when legislative leaders build their power bases by raising funds from lobbying groups. That price is a public policy that is unduly influenced by those contributors.

Proposition 68 will help end the spending arms race and reduce the clout of those major contributing groups. If the result of that reform is a bit less power for those who now wield the most power, so be it.