Brown Backs Scrapping of Limits on Legal Funds

State lawmakers should be free to accept unlimited money from special interests to help defray the cost of their legal defense in civil or criminal trials, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) said Tuesday.

Brown said he supports a bill awaiting final passage that would overturn a Fair Political Practices Commission decision that classified donations to legal defense funds as campaign contributions. Under that ruling, these donations were capped in the same way campaign contributions are limited.

“I believe that individuals who wish to assist those of us who may be under siege, at an enormous cost in terms of legal fees, ought to be able to do so independent of any other kinds of limitations,” Brown told reporters at a Capitol news conference.

Without provisions that have been amended by Sen. Barry Keene (D-Benicia) into a bill pending on the Senate floor, the cost of civil lawsuits or criminal investigations could tie up campaign funds and “literally bankrupt” politicians, Brown said. He referred to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who confidants have said is spending $100,000 a month to defend himself in various investigations.

“The cost of conducting and orchestrating your own defense and proving your innocence, particularly if you are an elected official, is just absolutely outrageous,” Brown said. “If you are literally limited to your campaign account in order to pay that, you would end up with your house being jeopardized.”

Proposition 73, approved by voters last year, capped campaign contributions to candidates at $1,000 from individuals and businesses and $5,000 from political action committees. But Brown said those limits and all of Proposition 73, which he opposed, should be repealed.

Instead, Brown said he believes lawmakers should be allowed to accept contributions of any size as long as they are disclosed to the public. He said voters are capable of judging when a candidate or officeholder has been unduly influenced by donations.

“If you want to take $3 trillion from Exxon for your campaign, I will run against you on that basis and defeat you, simply because nobody will ever believe that you are not a wholly owned subsidiary of Exxon,” he said.