Court Restricts Fund Raising in State Elections

A state appeals court ruling has significantly tightened voter-approved restrictions on Legislative campaign fund raising, upholding a ban on all off-year contributions for members of the Senate and Assembly.

The portentous ruling, which took state political leaders by surprise, means that assemblyman, who serve two-year terms, can only raise money every other year and senators, who serve four years, face a three-year fund-raising hiatus each term.

Since, as a practical matter, the raising of campaign funds to maintain incumbency is a chief concern of California’s 120 legislators, the court decision--if allowed to stand--seems sure to make a noticeable change in the atmosphere and pace, if not the conduct, of business in Sacramento.

Limits Total Donations

The 2nd District Court of Appeal ruling, published Tuesday and distributed Wednesday, additionally reinstates provisions of the last June’s Proposition 68 ballot proposition, limiting the aggregate amounts that individual legislative candidates can receive from special interest organizations and the aggregate amounts that special interest organizations can contribute in total to all legislative races.

“Very dramatic!” declared Walter Zelman, director of Common Cause of California and the winner of the lawsuit. “This will dramatically reduce the leverage of special interest groups on the process of the Legislature.”

The loser in the 3-0 decision was California’s Fair Political Practices Commission.

The court action stems from the decision by voters last June to pass two rival ballot propositions designed to reform campaign spending in California.

Proposition 73 passed and limited contributions to a maximum of $1,000 per person in legislative and statewide races, and prohibited legislative leaders from transferring money from their treasuries to the campaigns of others. Proposition 68 passed with a series of different provisions, including the ban on off-year fund raising by legislators.

The FPPC ruled that the two measures were in substantial conflict and held that in general only Proposition 73 should take effect because it received the most votes.

The state Court of Appeal, however, said that several provisions of Proposition 68 were not in conflict with the other ballot measure and therefore can take effect.

“It is logical to infer that (voters) intended that both initiatives to take effect to the greatest extent possible. The voters were not choosing between these two measures, nor did they intend that one initiative effect a near wholesale repeal of the other,” said the opinion written by Justice H. Walter Croskey. It was signed in concurrence by Justices Joan Dempsey Klein and Armand Arabian.

Besides the ban on off-year fund raising, the court reinstated Proposition 68’s strict limits on the amount of money that any candidate for the Assembly may accept cumulatively from all types of organizations--from PACs, unions and corporations--to $50,000 per election. For Senate candidates, the limit is $75,000.

Today, in highly contested legislative races, Common Cause’s Zelman said, special interests can easily account for $400,000 in contributions per candidate.

The ruling also upheld Proposition 68’s aggregate limit of $25,000 that any one individual can give in each election for legislative races. For organizations, the aggregate limit is $200,000 to all legislative candidates per election.

“This means each candidate is going to be far less reliant on interest groups and will have to find other forms of raising money,” Zelman said.

The justices made clear in their opinion that the new campaign finance restrictions take effect in 30 days and will not jeopardize off-year or special interest contributions collected before then.

The court decision did not receive general distribution until late Wednesday, and many officials were either hesitant to react without first reading it, or were vacationing during the current legislative recess. But early soundings found bipartisan opposition to the ruling and some predictions of a quick appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Assemblyman John Burton (D-San Francisco), chairman of the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee, called the results of the ruling “the worst of both worlds.”

Burton noted that the ban on off-year campaign fund raising and special interest contribution limits were originally tied to public financing of legislative campaigns under Proposition 68. An earlier court ruling threw out the public financing provision, leaving only the restrictions. “It skewers the whole process,” he said.

He was not alone in sounding an alarm.

“This adds to an already confusing and chaotic situation,” said Kathleen Purcell, an attorney with the San Francisco firm of Remcho, Johansen & Purcell, which often represents Democratic lawmakers in campaign matters.

She said the limits on special-interest contributions “have serious constitutional problems” in light of previous court rulings that governments cannot restrict freedom of speech, which has been interpreted as one’s right to donate to candidates. “I won’t be surprised to see an appeal,” she said.

On the GOP side, a spokeswoman for Assembly Republican Leader Ross Johnson of La Habra said a quick reading of the opinion raised many questions about the reasoning of the justices and the effect of the ruling. Johnson was the proponent of ballot Proposition 73 and will “very definitely consider” filing an appeal with the state Supreme Court, said spokeswoman Ann Richards.

A spokeswoman for the FPPC said the commission will meet Aug. 15 to discuss how and whether to react.

Apart from court action and possible appeals, legal experts said all of the new restrictions reinstated by the court will have to undergo a review by the U.S. Justice Department under terms of the federal Voting Rights Act. This could further delay implementation, the experts said.

The possible long-term impact, however, could be dramatic, as evidenced by the latest round of off-year campaign fund raising reports just filed by candidates for the Legislature.

During the first six months of 1989, the 69 Assembly members who have so far filed campaign statements with the secretary of state reported collecting $6,034,186. This was more than collected by all members of the Assembly during the same period of the last off-election year, 1987.

Not all politicians were dismayed by the ruling. “Getting less money into politics is equated by me, and I think the public, with cleaner politics,” said San Jose Mayor Thomas McEnery, a champion of fund-raising limits. “Somebody ought to tell them up in Sacramento that they’ve got the confidence of no one in the state.”

Times staff writers Daniel M. Weintraub and Clay Evans contributed to this account from Sacramento.