Politics 88 : Cranston Fined for 1986 Campaign Law Violations

California Sen. Alan Cranston has agreed to pay a $1,500 fine for breaking campaign contribution limits and failing to report promptly several debts incurred during his last reelection effort, the Federal Election Commission said Monday.

The agency cited the four-term Democratic senator for what were essentially bookkeeping failures that violated federal election law, but said it found no evidence of any willful breach of the law on the part of Cranston’s campaign staff.

It said Cranston’s reelection committee neglected to report within 60 days $225,733 borrowed from 13 creditors, or that it had taken in $7,050 in individual contributions that exceeded the federal limit of $1,000 each. Cranston spent a record $13 million to defeat Rep. Ed Zschau of Los Altos in the 1986 election.

Computer Error Blamed

In letters to the FEC, Cranston campaign officials blamed a computer problem for the failure to report contributions of more than $1,000, and said they did not know that certain items were covered by the debt-reporting requirements.

Ronald C. Peterson, general counsel to the campaign, charged that the violation issue was raised for “obviously political purposes” and added:”The (Cranston)committee’s record of compliance with federal election law was exemplary and not surpassed by any other campaign of comparable size.”

Complaints against Cranston’s campaign were filed in late 1986 by Assemblyman Robert Naylor, a Republican candidate for Cranston’s Senate seat, and Paul Gann, an author of Proposition 13. The FEC reviewed the allegations and dismissed most of them.

The commission has levied fines ranging from several hundred dollars to more than $300,000 in the case of Walter F. Mondale’s 1984 presidential campaign. It does not explain the penalties it seeks, so it is difficult to compare cases.

Mistakes ‘Inevitable’

Roy Greenaway, Cranston’s chief of staff, said in a telephone interview:”This is such a minor fine that we were astonished (the FEC)even insisted on an agreement for such a low (monetary)figure. . . . With a campaign our size, obviously, you’re going to make bookkeeping mistakes. It’s inevitable--no way of avoiding it.”

While most political candidates have faced complaints of election-law violations, Cranston’s fine was one of only about half a dozen of the 148 cases investigated last year that resulted in a penalty, an FEC spokesman said.

Cranston has been fined for such violations on at least one other occasion, and still faces some questions about his unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1984.