Prop. 73 Held Inadequate in Curbing Gifts to Campaigns

Limits on campaign contributions imposed by the voter-approved Proposition 73 “are riddled with loopholes through which special interests should be able to pour as much money as ever,” a California Common Cause spokesman charged Thursday.

Walter Zelman, executive director of the public-interest lobbying group, made the allegation after releasing a report showing that legislative candidates spent $61.6 million last year--an 8% increase over the $56.9 million spent during the 1986 election cycle.

“Our conclusion is the state sorely needs a limit on campaign spending,” Zelman said, adding it was “unfortunate” that Proposition 73 received more votes at the polls than Proposition 68, an initiative that sought to impose an expenditure ceiling.

Way to Bypass Ban

Despite a Proposition 73 prohibition on the transfer of funds by legislative leaders to their colleagues, Zelman said, “The leadership will have ways of getting around that.”

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) and Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) have successfully used transfers--giving large amounts from their own campaign war chests--to help legislators who support them get reelected.

The Legislature’s top leaders could get around the ban on transfers by simply telling contributors to give contributions directly to favored candidates, Zelman said.

“The Speaker, the president pro tem, and Republican leaders will be making a lot more telephone calls to a lot more (special) interest groups,” Zelman said, “saying, ‘These are the candidates that really need your help.’ . . “

Another problem with Proposition 73, according to Zelman, is that it allows a “virtually limitless capacity for organizations to form endless numbers of political action committees.” The initiative allows broad-based political action committees to contribute up to $5,000 per candidate.

A third problem, he said, is that contribution limits apply to each fiscal year (July 1-June 30) rather than each election. That, Zelman said, “encourages every incumbent to go to every potential contributor every year . . . and we think this is going to cause an explosion in off-year fund-raising.”

Zelman added he expects legislative spending to increase again in 1990, despite the fund-raising limits contained in Proposition 73.

“My own guess is,” he told a Capitol press conference, “that (the fund-raising limits contained in Proposition 73) will do virtually nothing to reduce campaign spending.”

Proposition 73 limits contributions by individuals and businesses to $1,000 each fiscal year, political action committees with two or more members to $2,500, and broad-based political action committees that have been in existence for more than six months and have 100 or more members to $5,000.

Speaker Brown, Roberti and several labor unions filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court earlier this week, charging that Proposition 73 violates the First Amendment of the Constitution.

The petitioners asked the high court to accept the case and invalidate the initiative as quickly as possible because conflicting lower court decisions have restricted their ability to make future campaign fund-raising plans.

Zelman said there will be more pressure to raise money in “the magic year” of 1990 because the 1991 Legislature will have the task of redrawing Assembly and Senate district lines based on the federal decennial census.

The way that these lines are drawn can perpetuate the legislative political party in power for the next decade until the next census.

“The members will be looking at absolute desperation time in terms of raising money for the 1990 elections,” Zelman said. “That’s the year in which they feel more than any other year that they must win.”