Bribe Witness Indignant Over Stench in Politics

When Jamie Hundt was a little girl from West Texas, her family took a vacation one year that included an impressive ride up a Sacramento street leading to the manicured lawn and white dome of the state Capitol.

“We drove toward the Capitol, and I saw squirrels on the grounds, and I was awe-inspired,” Hundt said. “I thought, ‘This is the greatest place that could possibly be.’ More than 20 years and a rude awakening later, Hundt visited Sacramento again this week. This time, the La Jolla businesswoman came under subpoena and tearfully testified in federal court that an aide to Sen. Joseph Montoya (D-Whittier) tried to shake her down for a $5,000 campaign contribution in exchange for a vote. Montoya is being tried on 12 counts of racketeering, bribery, money laundering and extortion.

Now, she has a decidedly different feel--as well as a name--for the seat of state government.

“Excremento,” she said. “That’s the way I feel about it.”

“Sacramento needs to be cleaned up,” she said, referring to political corruption. “We have a mess here. A big, gigantic, huge, horrible mess.”

Hundt says her childhood awe and innocence about California government began to crumble under growing alarm and anger after April, 1988, when Montoya aide Amiel A. Jaramillo called out of the blue to warn her and her husband, Dieter, about a little-known bill moving quietly through the Legislature.

The Hundts own Dial A Contact Lens Inc., a mail-order service that sends contact lenses at low prices to people who can furnish a valid prescription. The bill called to their attention was sponsored by the powerful California Optometric Assn. and would have made such sales illegal, putting the Hundts out of business.

Hundt testified Thursday that the Montoya aide referred the couple to a Sacramento lobbyist, who in turn said it would take $50,000 to kill the bill and save their business. And, since the bill was scheduled for a hearing before a Senate committee, the only way the Hundts could buy an immediate three-week postponement of the matter, Hundt said, was by making a $5,000 donation to the chairman of the committee--who happened to be Sen. Joseph Montoya.

Hundt, 33, said she was gripped by fear and anger. When she complained about the shakedown to Jaramillo, she said, the Montoya aide replied that that “was the way the system works.”

“If you want to dance, you had to pay the fiddler,” Hundt testified Jaramillo told her.

In the end, the Hundts refused to pay a dime and instead mounted a grass-roots petition drive strong enough to derail the 1988 legislation before Montoya’s committee. But an identical bill has been introduced and is lying dormant in a legislative committee, always a threat to be resurrected by the optometrics lobby.

Meanwhile, Hundt and her husband are still shaken and angry about their experience in Sacramento. They are eagerly cooperating with the federal government to prosecute Montoya and Jaramillo. The aide will go on trial for racketeering, conspiracy and extortion in March.

For Hundt, the experience has been a jolt, emotionally and patriotically. She said she believes in the “clean politics” of her father, a former city councilman and mayor of El Paso, Tex.

Different Breed

An early opponent of segregation, she said her father became known as a sort of border-town “Abraham Lincoln” when he insisted that city officials take down the rope that separated whites from Latinos and blacks during public dances in a municipal hall. When he subsequently ran for Congress, he eschewed all campaign contributions in an unsuccessful, low-budget bid that still netted him 33% of the vote.

In contrast, Hundt said, her recent experience has convinced her that there is a different breed of politician in Sacramento today--one preoccupied with fattening the campaign treasuries and personal wallets with contributions and speaking fees from special interests.

“It is wrong. It is wrong ,” she said over lunch Friday, still upset enough that she could eat only half an apple. “The amounts of money, the special-interest groups, the special legislation. It’s going on all the time.

“In my estimation, this is the fall of the Western Empire,” she said. “The ancient Greeks, ancient Rome fell, and what were the ingredients? Corruption. Decadence. Greed. And the same thing is happening right here.”

“We can wreck our country if we don’t stop it now. And I think we have to. I know I will do my best to. I think the climate is right. People are fed up with this, that these legislators who are elected to represent the people are living high off the hog and to heck with the people.”

Hundt is not alone in her disillusionment. A Times Poll published last week showed that most Californians believe legislators have their hands out and commonly accept bribes.

Ethics Reform

Conscious of that cynical undercurrent in the electorate and spurred on by the high-profile trial of Montoya, Senate leaders last week announced a three-bill ethics reform package to be put before the voters in the form of a constitutional amendment in June. The amendment would prohibit lawmakers from accepting speaking fees and gifts of more than $250 if voters would agree to increase their salaries from the current $40,800.

That would be just fine with Hundt, who said she would like to find a way to get rid of all campaign contributions. A liberal Democrat, she said it might not be a bad idea to resort to public financing of campaigns.

She is also encouraged by the federal government’s sting operation, which led to the indictments of Montoya and Jaramillo and her testimony last week.

Asked if she would feel sorry if Montoya were convicted and sent to prison, Hundt shot back: “A man who commits criminal acts deserves it. That’s the way it goes.”

Hundt said she believes that fellow Californians and Americans are equally fed up with political corruption, ranging from the Iran-Contra affair to the Lincoln Savings & Loan debacle to the shenanigans taking place in the “stench hole” of Sacramento.

“I think that the climate in the country is just ripe for changing it all,” she said. “Get rid of the bums, and let’s elect some new people.”

She also said her faith that reform will come is fueled by the Montoya corruption trial undertaken by the federal government.

“It gives me hope for America that maybe we can make it, maybe we can fix it, maybe we can cleanse this sleaze that’s eroding the country.

“These countries in Eastern Europe are trying to form democracies based on our democracy, and we’re tearing our own democracy down with corruption and greed,” she added.

“It’s sick and it has to stop.”