Ban on Political Forgery Passes Despite Detours

When Sen. William A. Craven (R-Oceanside) first introduced a bill outlawing the use of phony endorsements in political campaigns, it was with a righteous zeal.

But, as the measure limped into the homestretch last week--after being repeatedly tripped, stalled, amended and sideswiped--Craven confessed to feeling more like one of the condemned.

“We’re suffered the rigors of the damned on this thing,” he said.

It wasn’t until Friday, the last business day of the 1990 legislative session, that the bill was snatched from an ignominious death. The final version approved by the Legislature makes it a felony to use unauthorized “handwritten or mechanically reproduced” signatures in campaign material, or to take bona fide signatures “out of context.” Violations could be punished by a year in jail or fines up to $50,000.

Yet the treatment by well-meaning legislators and unseen forces has had all the markings of a whodunit: The knife has gone in several times, but there have been no witnesses or fingerprints.

Craven points to professional political consultants and campaign managers--people who have been known to deceive voters with phantom endorsements and signatures--as the culprits. His prime suspect has been Los Angeles-based B.A.D. Campaigns Inc., a powerful consulting firm operated by Michael Berman and Carl D’Agostino.

Phone messages left at B.A.D. Friday were not returned.

Senate President Pro Tempore David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) confirmed Friday that Berman had called to complain about an earlier version of the measure. He emphasized, however, that the inquiry had less to do with the bill’s difficulties than legislative concerns about a tricky subject.

“It’s not clear-cut. . . . We’re all against forgery,” Roberti said. “The issue is who’s the responsible party?”

For the record, no one has ever signed up to oppose the measure. It has been approved by lopsided margins at every turn, including a 72-1 slam-dunk in the Assembly earlier last Monday.

Yet some very uncanny things have happened. The bill has been forced through more hoops than Shamu on a busy day.

“It’s been through three policy committees, two fiscal committees, two floor votes, 10 rounds of amendments,” said Allen Sumner, assistant attorney general who has helped Craven with the legislation.

“It’s been in the Elections Code, the Government Code, the Penal Code and now the Civil Code,” he said. “And, with 24 hours left in the legislative session, they still want to rewrite it virtually from scratch.”

Pretty rude stuff for a measure that Craven, a 17-year veteran, thought was a cinch to sail through the Legislature. He introduced it with a flourish shortly after the 3rd District Court of Appeal threw out felony forgery charges against Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) on a technicality.

Lewis was charged with forging then-President Ronald Reagan’s signature to thousands of 1986 campaign smear pieces against Democrats in six state Assembly races, despite White House orders not to use the President’s name. One of those mailers targeted Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Carson) and accused him of “caving in to the powerful underworld drug industry.”

Although the court condemned the behavior as “misconduct which impinges on the public’s interest,” it ruled in January that no one was defrauded of money or property--necessary ingredients under the law for felony forgery charges. Since the state’s election code is silent on forgery, the charges were thrown out.

On Jan. 31, Craven introduced his bill to close the loophole. At first, it applied to signatures and phony endorsements in all campaign material or advertisements. If anyone doubted the rightness of the cause, Reagan himself endorsed the measure.

Craven said the idea was to get the bill approved and to the governor in time for the June primary season. And that seemed to be within reach when the Senate passed it 31 to 3 in March.

But, over in the Assembly, things began to go bump in the night.

Records show that the relatively straightforward idea was, in the words of Craven’s staff, “loved to death.” It was sent on a circuitous track through three committees, amended six times and eventually put into the state’s Fair Political Practices Act--a process that conveniently kept the bill in limbo until after the primaries, when most legislative contests are actually decided.

In San Diego, for instance, Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier (R-Encinitas) dodged a bullet after a scandal about double-dipping in her campaign funds. And Assemblyman Pete Chacon (D-San Diego) beat out a serious challenge from Celia Ballesteros with behind-the-scenes help from Assembly Democrats.

At first, Craven and the attorney general’s staff were willing to give lawmakers looking over his bill the benefit of the doubt.

“This is one of the few bills where they immediately identify with the topic and everyone has his or her own interpretation of his or her own campaigns,” said Sumner. “You see the same treatment with the ethics bills about honorariums. There is a lot more tinkering, a lot more amendments, a lot more attention.”

Then came the incident over amendments. The Assembly Ways and Means Committee decided Aug. 8 to make some perfunctory wording changes in the bill. Despite ample time, records show that the amended form of the bill wasn’t in print until Aug. 20, a 12-day gap that no one has been able to explain.

As it happens, the delayed printing of the amended bill violated a little-known deadline that requires measures involving the political reform act to be delivered to the Fair Political Practices Commission for public review. This year, the deadline for delivery to the agency’s office, just a few blocks from the Capitol, was no later than 5 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 17.

Craven’s bill showed up in the mail Aug. 21. The Oceanside Republican believed that was a sign that someone was trying to kill the measure through procedure, and not through a public vote in the Legislature.

The suspicion became even more pronounced when Craven’s staff discovered that two other FPPC-related bills were given the royal treatment by Assembly clerks. Although the two other Senate bills bear the same Monday, Aug. 20 amendment date, special preprint versions were hand-delivered to the FPPC offices at 4:26 p.m. on deadline Friday, records show.

Without that special treatment, Craven’s bill was left for dead, but his staff maneuvered around the obstacle by having it taken out of the political reform act and put into the penal code--a move that removed the deadline provisions and revived the bill. It was passed by the Assembly on Monday and approved 29 to 3 by the Senate on Wednesday.

With that, Craven’s bill was bound for the governor’s desk. Yet, in another bizarre twist, the measure was procedurally plucked in mid-flight on its way out of the Legislature so that lawmakers could take one more look at it.

The request prompted two days of quibbling among legislators over what constitutes a signature. Did it only apply to a genuine handwritten signature? What about signatures that are actually written by machines, such as the Reagan name later forged by Lewis?

Roberti wanted Craven to insert the words “cursive” and “handwritten” into the bill--a step that would make double sure to leave untouched printed names.

Such printed names and endorsements are used on so-called “slate mailers,” a piece of campaign literature that lumps together the names of political candidates from the same party but running for different offices. Berman and D’Agostino’s firm is the leading slate mail consultant for Democratic hopefuls in Los Angeles and other areas of the state.

It also found itself in court several years ago for allegedly using phony quotes in a last-minute 1984 slate mailer against Assemblyman Phillip Wyman (R-Tehachapi). The campaign material attributed quotes critical of Wyman to a state senator and the state commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Wyman said the quotes were false and sued under false advertising statutes, but lost on the ground that business law does not apply to political speech.

On Friday, Roberti acknowledged that Berman called his office about the bill. But the Senate leader said it was his personal concerns that prompted him to take a closer look at Craven’s bill, even after it was passed by the Senate.

He said it is always difficult to sort through who is at fault when there are charges of misquotes and phony endorsements. People who allow the use of their printed names in the mailers sometimes cave into criticism and disavow their actions to save face.

“The issue is, who should get the blame?” said Roberti. “Is it the campaign manager? Is it the candidate? Or is it the person who probably allowed the endorsement to be used but changed his mind?”

With the additional changes Friday, Roberti said the Craven bill was narrowed to deal with flat-out forgeries, as represented by the Lewis case. And, with all questions apparently settled, the measure was finally approved by the entire Legislature.

“We don’t want to be morbid about it,” Craven reflected afterwards about what his bill went through. “In reflection, the effort was well worth it, and it produced a product that would serve the people well.”