Campaign Funds Pay for Some Unlikely Items

When candidates shell out cash from contributors, they commonly spend it on such campaign staples as bumper stickers, brochures and yard signs.

Not jewelry, child care or a shotgun.

Yet these unlikely items--among others--turn up in campaign spending reports that South Bay legislators recently filed for the second half of 1989.

Assemblyman Gerald N. Felando (R-San Pedro) used campaign cash to buy a $2,201 shotgun as a present for Harold Olsen, his campaign treasurer, spent $3,093 on jewelry for female staffers and bought $1,722 in camera equipment for his office.

Assemblyman Dave Elder (D-San Pedro) spent $160 of his campaign money to provide day care for his four children and $250 for a camera for his Sacramento office. Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood) used $2,178 in political contributions to buy a video camera for his district office.

And Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Carson) says some of the several hundred dollars in restaurant bills listed in his report covered meals with lobbyists.

State law allows the use of campaign funds--political donations that are distinct from the public money legislators receive to run their offices--for anything “substantially related” to an officeholder’s job or campaign.

As the campaign reports of the South Bay lawmakers illustrate, this has been taken to mean a great deal more than the traditional trappings of political campaigns.

Felando, for instance, says he was fully justified in using a total of more than $5,000 in campaign funds to buy a shotgun for his treasurer and gold brooches for what he described as “around 10” female staff members.

Rewarding key personnel, he argued last week, helps bolster morale and efficiency in his legislative and campaign operations. The gifts can also save the campaign money, he said.

Referring to Olsen and the $2,000 shotgun, Felando said: “He’s a volunteer. If I had to pay the hours he puts in, it would be $2,000 a month.”

Felando’s report lists several examples of campaign-paid gift-giving, including more than $1,200 for flowers, nearly $1,000 for a staff Christmas party at Del Conte’s restaurant in Torrance, and $2,961 in rods and reels for a fishing tournament fund-raiser.

Speaking of the gear for the fishing fund-raiser, an annual affair attended by lobbyists, legislators and campaign supporters, Felando said: “People just take them, or we get them back.”

About the flower bill, he said: “People pass away, people get married, and people have birthdays. I like to recognize them.” In all cases, he said, the expenditures are an essential part of his campaign and legislative operations.

Felando said he needs the $1,700 in camera equipment to ensure he will have photographs from political events and field trips, such as a helicopter tour he took last week over the oil spill site off Huntington Beach.

Like Felando, Assemblymen Elder and Tucker say their new cameras are strictly for work in the office and out in the field. An aide to Tucker said the assemblyman’s video camera will be used to research constituent complaints.

One upcoming project, the aide said, will be to tape aircraft departing from Los Angeles International Airport to determine whether pilots are disobeying an agreement barring planes from turning south before they clear the coast.

Elder said he bought a fully automatic camera so he can photograph constituent visits to his Sacramento office, among other events. He also defended his use of campaign funds for child care, saying it permits him to attend political events when his children are visiting.

“When I go to campaign, I have to use child care,” said Elder, a divorced father whose four children range in age from 2 to 13. “Sometimes, things happen where I don’t have any other option.”

Floyd, meanwhile, said his use of campaign funds to pay for dinners with lobbyists is far more desirable than the alternative--letting lobbyists pick up the tab.

“I pick up the tab,” Floyd said. “That way nobody owns me.”

Alan Ashby, a spokesman for Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, declined to comment on the campaign spending cited in these reports by South Bay legislators. However, he said the attorney general’s office has considered some similar cases in the past.

In one, Van de Kamp advised a nonprofit education group in 1987 that members could use contributed funds to hire a baby-sitter for their children--but only to free up time for their work with the group. Ashby said the opinion would likely apply to elected officials seeking to pay for child care with campaign funds.

Using campaign money to buy cameras and other equipment has been considered legal as long as they are used in campaign or legislative work, Ashby said.

“If it were a sham and the legislator used (the camera) for vacation trips and never took it into the office, then that would be a different thing,” Ashby said. But he acknowledged that in less clear-cut cases, “we have to give the benefit of the doubt to the legislator.”

The guidelines on campaign-paid gifts are more vague. In 1982, then-Atty. Gen. George Deukmejian advised a state senator that Christmas gifts to staffers exceeding $100 could be considered unauthorized unless they are “reasonably related to some political, legislative or governmental purpose.”

The difficulty in establishing clear guidelines on which relationships are “reasonable,” however, has made enforcing campaign spending laws difficult, several state officials acknowledged privately.

A new campaign spending law that took effect Jan. 1 requires that personal gifts bought with campaign funds be “directly related” to a political, legislative or governmental purpose.

A spokeswoman for the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission, which is overseeing implementation of the measure, declined to comment on what types of gifts will now be covered. But some experts expect the new law to result in tighter state controls on campaign-paid gifts. One of them, Ruth Holton, the Sacramento lobbyist for the government watchdog group Common Cause, said such a change would be long overdue.

Referring to Felando’s presents for staff members, Holton said last week: “The purpose of campaign funds is to use it on campaigns, not presents. He should reward them with his personal funds, not with some donor’s money.”

Gerald N. Felando: $2,201 shotgun for campaign treasurer

Dave Elder: $160 for day care for his four children

Curtis Tucker Jr.: $2,178 for a video camera for his district office

Richard E. Floyd: Several hundred dollars for meals for lobbyists

WHAT LEGISLATORS SPENT Here’s what South Bay state lawmakers raised and spent in the second half of 1989:

Contributions Expenditures Cash on hand 12/31/89 ASSEMBLY MEMBERS Richard Floyd $ 79,022 $ 52,897 $106,314 Dave Elder 52,245 39,910 64,352 Gerald Felando 98,406 99,771 50,668 Curtis Tucker Jr. 10,250 34,182 2,691 SENATE MEMBERS Ralph Dills $ 56,750 $ 29,412 $228,159 Robert Beverly* 47,750 3,346 63,802 Diane Watson 48,970 36,653 54,547

* The only South Bay state legislator who does not have to stand for reelection this year.

SOURCE: Semiannual campaign finance reports