HUNTINGTON BEACH : Mayor to Present Proposal on Flyers

Mayor Peter M. Green tonight is scheduled to ask the City Council to introduce an ordinance to counteract political “hit-piece” literature.

The mayor’s proposal is aimed at political flyers, usually called “hit pieces,” that target a candidate with sometimes unsubstantiated charges or innuendoes. Green’s suggested ordinance would require political groups and candidates to file with the city clerk’s office copies of any flyers mailed or sent out in the last 14 days of a campaign. Candidates would be required to file the copies within two hours of the first distribution.

Advance filings, Green said, would allow “opponents or proponents the opportunity to respond to statements about a measure that are untrue or believed to be untrue.”

Green’s proposed ordinance is modeled after one adopted in Newport Beach last August. The Newport Beach ordinance also requires candidates to file flyers distributed near the end of political campaigns with the city clerk’s office. In a memo to the council, Huntington Beach City Atty. Gail C. Hutton said the Newport Beach ordinance has worked well.

“Bob Burnham, Newport Beach’s city attorney, reports that last year’s campaign was the cleanest campaign that he could remember,” Hutton said in her memo to the council. “Public disclosure provided a window to further discuss the issues and limited personal attacks.”

In the 1988 city elections in Huntington Beach, some last-minute “hit pieces” greatly affected the outcome of the races, according to many political observers.

Those targeted by “hit pieces” have said such flyers and mailers arrive too late for them to issue rebuttals before Election Day.