Personal Use of Vote Funds Costs Sen. Watson $21,075

To avoid being charged in an election year with violating campaign spending laws, state Sen. Diane Watson agreed Friday to a $21,075 civil penalty for dipping into her campaign treasury to pay for personal travel, a family reunion, a graduation party, clothing and jewelry.

The Los Angeles Democrat admitted no wrongdoing in reaching the settlement with Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp over allegations she violated an 8-year-old statute that bars the personal use of campaign funds.

This is the first time the relatively weak law has resulted in a fine of an elected state official, according to Assistant Atty. Gen. N. Eugene Hill. The law has never led to a prosecution.

Watson insisted Friday that all her expenses were justified and that she reluctantly agreed to pay the penalty--to come out of her own pocket over the next 18 months--to avoid a trial.

“I didn’t want to be drawn into a costly court battle in an election year,” she said. “I think it is unfair, unjust, that I’ve been singled out. It is unjustifiable. I think they are using me.”

The settlement is based on the amount of payments in dispute, including $15,000 in credit card purchases paid for out of her campaign fund in 1987 and 1988 for items like shoes, clothing and costume jewelry.

Watson said she had her campaign pay off her personal credit card bills because she believed it owed her $15,000 for rent she had paid since 1986 on a Sacramento duplex. Like a number of legislators, Watson paid for a rental out of campaign funds for the months when the Legislature was actually in session. She said that when she read a legislative counsel’s opinion that she also could pay her out-of-session rent for the duplex from her campaign treasury, she began using the campaign funds to pay her credit card bills to offset what she believed was owed her.

“I would have done it differently for accounting purposes,” Watson said. “But I was absolutely justified and right for using that money.”

The veteran lawmaker dismisses many of the other allegations about her use of campaign money as “nit-picking.”

But Van de Kamp and his deputies contended that the expenditures were not for legislative, governmental or political purposes as required by the law, and they rejected Watson’s contention that all the payments could be justified.

“Many of the activities that politicians conduct in their ordinary lives have political benefits,” said Assistant Atty. Gen. Hill. “But that doesn’t make every activity in their lives political. Some are just ordinary aspects of everyday life.”

Many of the allegations of misuse grew out of Watson’s practice of using campaign funds to pay for travel for friends and neighbors to join her in Sacramento and for her mother or aunt to accompany her on trips.

The 1982 statute barring personal use of campaign funds makes an exception for travel by “immediate family” of officeholders, who are traveling on legitimate political or governmental business.

But according to Hill, the exception was only meant to apply to spouses and dependent children--and not other relatives.

Watson, who is single and has no children, contends that interpretation is unfair to her and discriminates against unmarried politicians.

“Why should I be treated any differently, because I am single?” she asked. “Am I to always travel alone, or can I use campaign funds to take a staff person or a relative? That is a question that has to be resolved.”

Also at issue is Watson’s use of campaign money to fly friends, neighbors and campaign volunteers to Sacramento, she says, to look at the Legislature in action.

As part of the settlement, Watson has agreed to pay $949 to the state as compensation for 11 such trips in 1987.

“These are citizens, neighbors, supporters, friends, who have been working in the campaign, who have contributed time and energy,” Watson said. “These are ordinary citizens, not big contributors. These are little people. I don’t have much to reward them with, except good government.”

Other payments in dispute covered travel for Watson herself to New York, where, the senator said, she attended a funeral. Other trips covered by the settlement include a trip to Fresno for Watson’s mother and aunt, where the lawmaker presented a legislative resolution to the 100-year-old mother of a constituent.

Watson explained that she also had to repay $460 for travel to Sacramento for two consultants, who made arrangements for a family reunion, attended by 200 people. The consultants helped organize tours of the Capitol and a workshop on the Legislature for families and friends attending the reunion, she said.

“I’m a different kind of legislator,” Watson said. “I’m the only black woman legislator in the Senate. The demands on me are different from my colleagues. A lot of people in my district don’t vote. A lot of people will not get involved if you do not go out and bring them into the process.”

The attorney general’s office began looking at Watson’s campaign spending because of allegations that she improperly used state resources as well as campaign funds to help prepare her Ph.D. thesis.

Personal use of state-paid staff and equipment is a violation of criminal law. Earlier this year, prosecutors dropped the issue saying there was “insufficient evidence” to sustain the charges.

The investigation also included a review of her use of campaign funds to pick up some of the costs of the thesis. But Watson had advanced her campaign $750 in personal funds to cover those costs.

Investigators soon discovered, however, that Watson had used additional campaign money for a graduation party to celebrate the completion of her Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School. In settling the civil case against her, Watson agreed to pay the state $2,872--part of the cost of the party picked up by her campaign committee.

In an unrelated action this week, former state Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) agreed to pay a $4,000 fine to the Fair Political Practices Committee for his failure to promptly report $30,767 in last-minute contributions he received in his unsuccessful 1986 campaign to become state controller. Campbell and his campaign treasurer also admitted they had failed to identify fully all expenditures made during the campaign.

Campbell resigned from the Senate earlier this month to become president of the California Manufacturers Assn.