Stirling Lambastes Common Cause : State Senator Challenges Colleagues to Stand Up to Reformers

Speaking against legislative ethics reforms, state Sen. Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) on Thursday referred to the citizens lobbying group California Common Cause, apparently facetiously, as “communist” and chided his colleagues for not standing up to the reformers.

Stirling’s remarks came during debate by the Senate over an ethics package being considered by lawmakers as a way to improve their image in the wake of a recent FBI probe, which resulted in racketeering, extortion and money-laundering charges against state Sen. Joseph B. Montoya (D-Whittier).

The bill that prompted his attack on Common Cause and its executive director, Walter A. Zelman, would have prohibited lawmakers and their staff members from lobbying the Legislature for a year after they leave office or quit their jobs.

Stirling argued that the bill and the rest of the ethics bills were fueled by the wrongheaded notion that lawmakers are generally corrupt.

‘Fought for This Democracy’

“My granddaddy fought for this democracy, and my daddy did and my brother died for it, and I hope my children, both men and women, will serve in the armed forces of this country,” Stirling said. “And I hate to see it given away to Walter Zelman and the communist, I mean, the Common Cause model of corruption.

“What the Legislature is doing here is waving a white flag of full retreat in the onslaught on its integrity. Now, I’m getting a little tired of trying to defend your virtue, folks. It’s kind of a lonely position up here,” Stirling said with a chuckle.

“Common Cause and Walter Zelman, who is running for office, who the press idolizes because he’s willing to stand up to all you guys, and you’re not willing to stand up to him, has got us in full retreat,” Stirling said.

Contacted in his Capitol office after the Senate session, Stirling said his use of the term “communist” for the citizens group and Zelman was a joke, but that it underscored his serious belief in the “liberality” of the reform organization.

Zelman, reached at his Los Angeles office, said he didn’t think Stirling’s remarks were funny.

‘Out of Touch With Reality’

“The comments are so out of line and so out of touch with reality and so sad in their lacking of understanding of Common Cause, its purposes and our democracy in general, that I would really prefer not to comment on them,” Zelman said.

Zelman has been executive director of Common Cause for 12 years and is often quoted as a critic of how politicians raise money, receive gifts and respond to the request of special interests. Zelman said the ethics package now before lawmakers is a response to the fact that the public has lost confidence in the government.

“The public would like to believe that public servants are not beholden to special interests,” Zelman said Thursday. “But the appearance, and I’m afraid, the reality is that even the best of legislators are so needy of large contributions from special interests, they inevitably have to weigh the need for those contributions against what they would like to do for public policy.”

That perception prompted California voters last year to pass Proposition 73, which limits contributions to $1,000 from individuals and $5,000 from political action committees.

And it has lawmakers contemplating an ethics package that would ban lawmakers from accepting speaking fees, slap limits on the amount of gifts legislators could take, put restrictions on legislative committees meeting in private, prohibit lawmakers from becoming legislative lobbyists a year

after leaving office and ban them from receiving income from lobbyists.

Stirling, however, said he is dead-set against those ethics measures because it would curtail the contact between legislators and the people, making the lawmakers slaves of state employees.

The San Diego Republican said he believes it is a good thing that special interests--which he defines widely as every California citizen or group with a common interest--influence the Legislature.

That influence, he said, is played out at the state Capitol in public hearings and debate, where competing interests are sorted out in a “civilized, legitimate and fully exposed manner.”

“To somehow isolate that as an irrelevant, even a dark, specter in the legislative process, is flat wrong,” Stirling contended in an interview in his office. “That is exactly what we do, is sort out the interests of the people of California when they are in conflict with each other.”

Legislators Aren’t Corrupt

Stirling agreed that there is a widespread public perception that this sorting out is done by politicians on the take. But, when asked if he believes legislators are corrupt, he said: “Absolutely not.”

Even when there is an occasional bad apple in the barrel, press scrutiny and current laws are enough to expose and remove it from the process, he said.

So-called ethics reform by Zelman and his organization is just too much, said Stirling, who has been the lone “No” vote on several ethics bills.

Stirling also said Zelman “is a man of extreme liberal views who believes in statism, who believes in state power, who believes in redistribution of the wealth, believes that he should be in charge, and that’s why he’s running for public office.”

Zelman acknowledges that he is contemplating a run for state insurance commissioner, but he denied emphatically that he is against democracy just because he favors ethics changes for the Legislature.

Stirling “seems to feel that someone who wishes to reform campaign financing or close the revolving door or ban honoraria is some kind of left-wing kook,” Zelman said.