Panel Opens a Loophole for Political Junk Mail

The state’s campaign watchdog commission on Wednesday created a loophole in a voter-approved ban on mass mailings at public expense by allowing elected officials to mail unlimited numbers of “meeting notices” right up to election day.

In reaching its decision, the Fair Political Practices Commission unanimously overruled its own staff, which in a memo to commissioners complained that the new regulation “contains very broad language . . . which could lead to abuse.”

The vote by the five-member panel was immediately attacked by one of the authors of Proposition 73, which imposed a flat-out ban on mass mailings at public expense.

Assembly Republican Leader Ross Johnson of La Habra, an author of the 1988 initiative, complained that the new regulation would also undermine the 1974 Political Reform Act, which for 15 years has effectively barred incumbents from using mass mailings from the time they file for reelection up until election day.

“The commission is thumbing its nose at the will of the voters who have clearly spoken, in two statewide initiatives, that they don’t want to pay for political junk mail,” Johnson said.

However, an FPPC spokesperson defended the decision, arguing that the commissioners were simply trying to interpret Proposition 73’s ban on mass mailings in a way that would allow government to continue to contact citizens.

“What the commission has tried to do is have the mass mailing restriction apply in a common sense way,” said the FPPC’s Sandra Michioku.

If the five-member commission had not acted to broaden the ban by regulation, Michioku said, “an unintended result would have been to ban the sending out of tax bills and welfare checks.”

But Johnson complained that the new regulation created a “massive loophole.”

“When voters passed Proposition 73, they thought they were voting to eliminate outrageous political puff pieces mailed at taxpayer expense,” Johnson said. “These so-called meeting notices are a well-known campaign tactic and have no business being paid for by the taxpayers.”

Until the passage of Proposition 73 in June, 1988, there were no restrictions on mass mailings at public expense except during election periods. Even then, incumbents could mail out official notices to constituents, but with restrictions on the types of mailings and how prominently the incumbent’s name could be displayed.

The new rule allows an incumbent officeholder to decide to hold a meeting on an issue and then send out thousands of notices to constituents, urging them to attend. The regulation does put restrictions on how often and prominently the elected official’s name can be displayed on the notice.

The FPPC’s Michioku said that the meeting notice exception was requested by local government officials, who wanted to be able to meet with constituents on such controversial issues as toxic waste. She said that commissioners have pledged to review their decision if they see evidence that elected officials are abusing the meeting notice rule.