FPPC to Study Change in Fund-Raising Rules

The state Fair Political Practices Commission will consider proposed regulations today that would lift the threat that Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and his presumed challenger, Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, could not use millions of dollars already raised for next April’s mayoral race.

The proposed regulations are part of the political watchdog agency’s effort to sort out how Proposition 73, a campaign finance reform initiative approved by voters in June, should apply to various political contests.

Earlier commission staff recommendations had suggested that the initiative’s limits should apply to the Los Angeles mayoral race, meaning that Bradley and Yaroslavsky would have had to return their accumulated campaign funds and start over. The most recent campaign contribution reports show that each has more than $1.1 million in cash.

While a commission spokeswoman said the rewritten proposal is designed to make the initiative fairer and more defensible against legal challenges, the head of California Common Cause, a political public-interest group, warned that the commission may be overstepping its authority and creating a gigantic loophole that would benefit incumbent candidates up and down the state.

“I wish the rules for the Los Angeles election were different,” said Common Cause executive director Walter Zelman. “But I’m not prepared to say the FPPC should or can rewrite” the initiative.

“My first reaction is (the proposed regulation) is not compatible with the proposition,” Zelman said. He noted that the regulations would affect not only unusual cases like the Los Angeles mayor’s race, but races involving “dozens of statewide candidates and legislative candidates, even if they are not running until 1990.” By in effect changing the proposition to allow candidates to carry over funds raised before 1989, the FPPC would give incumbents “dramatic advantage over their challengers,” Zelman said.

A spokesman for Bradley said the mayor’s advisers have not had a chance to evaluate the proposed regulations. But a campaign aide to Yaroslavsky praised the proposed regulations.

Both Bradley and Yaroslavsky have argued that the city’s campaign contribution limits, which are generally stricter than Proposition 73’s, should continue to guide fund raising in city races. Both limit individual contributions to mayoral candidates to $1,000, although Proposition 73 allows up to $4,000 in a four-year period.

Proposition 73 calls for current campaign treasuries to be empty on New Year’s Day, 1989. But if adopted by the commission, the proposed regulations would permit any candidate to carry into 1989 any money raised after July 1, 1987, so long as it was within Proposition 73 limits.

In political terms, the proposed FPPC action offers more relief to Yaroslavsky than Bradley. Since Bradley is a longtime incumbent, Yaroslavsky presumably needs more campaign funds to get his name and message out and could be hurt most by a late-breaking upheaval in the fund-raising ground rules.