Court Kills Funding Ban, Sets Rules on Initiatives

The state Supreme Court today threw out a ban on non-election year fund-raising by legislative candidates and set ground rules for competing initiatives that could affect next week’s measures on term limits and the environment.

In a 5-2 decision, the court said that when two rival measures are on the same ballot and get majority votes, only the one with more votes takes effect, and no provisions of the other can be enforced.

The ruling, effective in 30 days, voided all remaining provisions of Proposition 68, a campaign finance initiative for legislative candidates that was approved in June, 1988, by 53% of the voters. Proposition 73, a milder campaign finance measure on the same ballot, got 58% of the vote.

The court rejected arguments by Common Cause and other groups backing Prop. 68 that portions of the measure that did not expressly conflict with Prop. 73 could be salvaged: an overall limit on contributions to legislative candidates and a ban on off-year election fund-raising.

Contribution limits in Prop. 73 have been ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge but have been allowed to remain in effect for legislative races until appeals are resolved.

Today’s ruling could affect several sets of competing initiatives on Tuesday’s ballot, wiping out all provisions of a measure that passed by a majority but got fewer votes than a conflicting measure.

For example, Propositions 131 and 140 contain rival sets of term limits for officeholders, but each also contains other provisions.

Competing environmental measures--Propositions 130 and 138 on forestry, the Prop. 128 “Big Green” initiative and its farmer-backed Prop. 135 rival on pesticides--also contain many provisions that do not conflict with any portions of the other measures.