Bernhardt Opponents Say Support Group Has Violated Election Laws

The citizens group seeking to recall San Diego City Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt charged Thursday that a pro-Bernhardt committee has violated numerous election laws, prompting Bernhardt’s supporters to accuse her opponents of “dirty desperation politics.”

At a news conference outside City Hall, leaders of the Recall Bernhardt Committee charged a pro-Bernhardt group, Citizens for Fairness, with failing to adequately identify all campaign contributors and with not maintaining the “independent” status that it claims.

The question of the group’s independence from Bernhardt is critical, because in setting itself up as a so-called “non-controlled” campaign committee, Citizens for Fairness subjected itself to stringent laws governing its operations and expenditures--guidelines that Bernhardt’s opponents claimed have been repeatedly violated.

“This is further evidence of Linda Bernhardt’s . . . corrupt web of deceit and dishonesty,” said Kathy Gaustad, the recall committee’s chairwoman. “Even if it’s not illegal, it shows that she’s skirting the law again.”

However, Bernhardt consultant Tim Smith said Citizens for Fairness has done “absolutely nothing improper,” and he accused the recall committee of “trying to pull out a lot of garbage at the last minute,” only five days before Tuesday’s election.

“They could have raised these questions three months ago, so it’s pretty obvious what they’re trying to do,” Smith said of the recall group’s request for the city attorney’s office to investigate its allegations. “Once again, they’re raising allegations with nothing behind them just to get some damaging headlines. It’s more of the same from them--politics at its worst.”

A city attorney, however, said that some details about Citizens for Fairness and Bernhardt’s links to it “raise some concerns” about compliance with local and state campaign laws.

“We’re going to have to analyze and evaluate everything, but I can see some questions,” said Chief Deputy City Atty. Ted Bromfield. “Some of these things seem to come right up to the line. What it shows is that people seem to be really pushing the envelope of these independent committees.”

The recall campaign--the first since the City Charter was adopted early this century--was spawned largely by Scripps Ranch and Mira Mesa community leaders’ outrage over Bernhardt’s support for a controversial redistricting plan that shifted their communities to another district. Recall leaders also have faulted Bernhardt for accepting campaign contributions from developers after pledging during her 1989 campaign not to do so.

In response, Bernhardt has charged that she is being unfairly victimized by the same pro-development forces that opposed her in 1989. By unseating her only 17 months into her term, Bernhardt argues, her opponents hope to dismantle the pro-environmental majority that now dominates the City Council on most major issues.

Though two campaign committees controlled by Bernhardt are registered with the city clerk’s office, her anti-recall campaign has been led by the independent group Citizens for Fairness. Neither of the two Bernhardt-controlled committees--one remaining from her 1989 council race and the other involved with her possible 1993 reelection--has been active during the two-month recall campaign, though one did spend money earlier in an unsuccessful attempt to block the recall from qualifying for the ballot.

Leaders of the anti-Bernhardt group, however, questioned Thursday whether Citizens for Fairness is independent in name only, citing various connections that link Bernhardt, her controlled committees and the purportedly independent group.

Bernhardt consultant Smith, for example, has contributed to one of Bernhardt’s controlled committees even while overseeing the operations of Citizens for Fairness, which pays his salary. Similarly, David Gould, the treasurer of Bernhardt’s two controlled committees, has donated to Citizens for Fairness, recall leaders said.

Smith has been observed at Bernhardt’s side almost constantly throughout the campaign, accompanying her to candidate forums, scheduling her other campaign activities and acting as her primary spokesman.

In an interview, Smith also acknowledged that Bernhardt has made fund-raising calls on behalf of Citizens for Fairness, but stressed that she has not been involved in the committee’s decisions on how to spend the nearly $36,000 it had raised as of March 23.

Bernhardt’s reported hands-off role in regard to the committee’s spending is a vital--and disputed--distinction, because city election laws specify that “independent expenditures” cannot be made “with the cooperation or with the prior consent of a candidate or his agent.”

Gaustad and other leaders of the anti-Bernhardt group argued Thursday that Smith is, indeed, Bernhardt’s “agent”--a classification that, if so designated by city attorneys, would raise legal questions about Citizens for Fairness’ independence.

“What we have to look at is whether any of this gets into the area of directing how money was spent,” City Atty. Bromfield explained. “If a candidate or his agent gets involved in that way with an independent committee, it would make the (city’s $250-per-person) contribution limit meaningless, because you could circumvent it just by setting up a lot of sham independent committees.”

Typically, candidates go to lengths to distance themselves from independent committees working in their behalf, both for obvious legal reasons and to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Legalities aside, Bernhardt’s purported failure to maintain that arm’s-length distance has saddled her with an unwanted controversy in the recall campaign’s closing days.

Bernhardt said she decided not to set up a committee under her control for the recall “because I didn’t want to be burdened with the responsibility.”

“I just wanted to go out and do what I do best--campaign and talk to voters--and not have to worry about running a big campaign committee,” she said. “This just seemed a preferable way to do things.”

Meanwhile, Smith’s response to questions about the propriety of Bernhardt’s helping to raise money for the supposedly independent committee is one that her critics dismiss as perhaps legally sound but politically preposterous.

“Linda is not a candidate--this is a ballot measure,” Smith said. “Other council members have raised money for other ballot measures in the past.”

Recall leaders are quick to note, however, that there is a major difference between an elected official raising funds for a measure such as a proposed open-space bond and soliciting contributions in a recall contest in which her own political career is at stake.

“Linda Bernhardt seems to feel that the laws were only made for peasants like us,” Gaustad said.

Among its other allegations, the Recall Bernhardt Committee charged that Citizens for Fairness has also violated campaign laws by not listing, as required, the occupations and employers of 38 contributors.

That omission--one commonly found on many candidates’ campaign disclosure forms--has been corrected through an amended campaign report that will be filed with the city clerk’s office today, Smith said.

“We want this to be out there for the public to see,” Smith said. “That’s the difference between us and them. We want to inform people, but they want to deceive them. That’s what they’ve been doing since the campaign started, and that’s what they’re doing now.”

Under the unusual procedures governing the recall, Bernhardt’s political fate will be decided by a simple majority vote in one race, while seven would-be successors compete in a tandem contest.

If the 31-year-old Bernhardt receives more than 50% of the vote next Tuesday, she will retain her post, rendering the outcome of the companion race moot. However, if she is ousted, the candidate drawing the most votes in the other contest--in which Bernhardt is ineligible to run--would serve the rest of her four-year term, which expires in December, 1993.

The candidates hoping to replace Bernhardt are corporate lawyer Tom Behr, land-use planner John Brand, general contractor Les Braund, lawyer and part-time county planner Mike Eckmann, former congressional aide Dena Holman, former San Diego City Councilman Floyd Morrow and credit union services manager Ken Moser.