Last-Ditch Effort for L.B. Ethics Package Dies on Tie Council Vote

A last-ditch effort to salvage an ethics package failed when the Long Beach City Council deadlocked 4 to 4 on a modified version of that plan.

The modified legislation deleted a controversial measure providing for public financing of campaigns. The package, which would have been on the ballot in November, would have created an ethics commission with power to set salaries annually and investigate allegations of impropriety against elected officials and other city employees. The deadlock means that a similar package cannot be voted on for another two years.

Disappointed supporters claimed that councilmen shied away from a need to regulate escalating campaign costs. “We need radical change, but I guess you can’t expect legislators to police themselves,” Councilman Wallace Edgerton said.

Opponents argued in occasionally testy meetings last month that the proposal was too expensive and was a back-door way to raise salaries. They also questionned whether its public-financing provision could withstand a court challenge.

Councilman Evan Anderson Braude, author of the package, said he had hoped deletion of that provision would “lead to a common ground.”