Panel OKs Wide Loophole in Law on Gifts to Officials

Creating a loophole large enough for a Cadillac, the State Fair Political Practices Commission ruled Tuesday that elected officials can receive gifts and honorariums of any size despite a new law intended to limit such payments to $1,000.

The commission, adopting regulations to implement Proposition 73, voted 4 to 0 to allow elected officials to accept any size gift or honorarium from any source as long as it is not payment for a speech or article “relating to the governmental process.”

Commission Chairman John Larson said the panel actually favors a ban on gifts and honorariums but was forced to adopt the rule because of the way Proposition 73 is written.

“It’s a large loophole,” Larson said after the vote, but added: “I didn’t want to let what I think the law should be influence my vote as to what the law is now.”

Before adopting its interpretation of the initiative, the commission heard from lawyers for Los Angeles and San Diego counties who argued that their supervisors should be able to receive any size gift as long as they disclose it publicly.

“I think they should be able to take a trip to Singapore, anywhere in the world,” said DeWitt Clinton, Los Angeles County counsel. “They should be able to take a Cadillac. They should be able to take a gift and report it.”

San Diego County Counsel Lloyd Harmon told the commission that a more restrictive interpretation of Proposition 73 would be unfair to San Diego County supervisors because they would not be able to keep the $3,700 worth of free tickets they receive for the home games of the San Diego Padres and the San Diego Chargers.

Proposition 73, approved by the voters one year ago today, was designed primarily to limit the size of campaign contributions. But it also devotes one ambiguous sentence to restricting the size of gifts and honorariums that state and local elected officials can accept. The section reads in its entirety:

“No elected officeholder shall accept any gift or honorarium for any speech, article or published work on a subject relating to the governmental process from any single source which is in excess of one thousand dollars ($1,000), in any calendar year, except reimbursement for actual travel expenses and reasonable subsistence in connection therewith.”

In the ballot statement given to voters last year, Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and Legislative Analyst Elizabeth G. Hill both concluded that this provision of Proposition 73 would put a $1,000 limit on the size of gifts and honorariums elected officials could receive from a single source per year.

However the commission, in adopting its regulation, concluded that gifts were not covered by this limit unless they are given in payment for a speech or article on a subject relating to the governmental process. Thus, under the commission’s interpretation, an elected official could accept gifts of any size.

Similarly, the commission ruled that the $1,000 limit on honorariums applies only to payments for a speech or article dealing with the governmental process. Under this regulation, a lawmaker could give a talk on any other subject and receive an honorarium of any amount.

In the case of both gifts and honorariums, the limit would not apply even if the payment came from an individual or group that had an interest in matters pending before the elected official’s governmental agency.

Assembly GOP Leader Ross Johnson, the principal author of Proposition 73, was critical of the commission’s regulation because he originally intended that gifts would be covered by the $1,000 limit, according to his spokeswoman, Anne Richards.

However, she noted that a new initiative proposed by the La Habra Republican for the 1990 ballot will attempt to improve on Proposition 73 by including an outright ban on all gifts and honorariums. “What he is now going to make crystal clear in his new initiative is that there should be no gifts and honoraria,” she said.