Ballot Proposal Filed as Ethics Reform Alternative

A coalition of public interest and community groups filed an ethics-in-government ballot proposal Wednesday, offering a potential alternative to an ethics reform package under consideration by the Los Angeles City Council.

John Phillips, chairman of the political watchdog organization California Common Cause, said the coalition, dubbed the Clean Government Committee, supports the council’s June ballot measure.

However, the committee chose to file the alternative proposal with the city clerk as a way of discouraging any further weakening of the measure, approved last week by the council and due for additional consideration Feb. 27.

If the City Council package--which includes a ban on outside jobs and honorariums, limits on gifts, a new city Ethics Commission and public campaign financing--is further undermined, Phillips said the committee would seek to gather enough signatures to place its own measure on the November, 1990, or April, 1991, ballot.