Contribution Limits Sought in O.C. Races

Frustrated by loopholes that have undercut Orange County’s 12-year-old campaign finance law, drafters of the ordinance Monday called for major reforms in the way candidates raise money to run for office.

In a letter sent to members of the Board of Supervisors, community activist Shirley L. Grindle and the campaign reform committee she chairs urged the supervisors to let voters consider a proposal that would for the first time impose a local limit on campaign contributions in elections for county offices.

“We believe that this is an opportunity to improve things for the board and for everybody else,” Grindle said in an interview. “We wrote the original . . . ordinance, and it’s our responsibility to straighten it up if there’s anything wrong with it.”

Although specifics are still being drafted, Grindle said she expects the final proposal to bar all board members and countywide candidates from accepting more than $1,000 from any single contributor during a four-year election cycle. The limit would apply to all contributors, whether they are individuals, companies or groups that give through political action committees. Any candidate who faced a runoff could raise an additional $1,000 per contributor.

If adopted, the limits would be the first local cap on political contributions to candidates for county offices, and the proposal would effectively replace much of the county campaign reform law known as TINCUP. That ordinance was adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 1978 after it had qualified for the ballot, so it can only be changed by a countywide vote.

“It is our intent that the amended version of TINCUP be more acceptable and easier for board members to comply with, as well as being judged an effective campaign finance regulatory tool by the public,” Grindle said in her letter. “This amendment is being undertaken to better serve the best interests of the public, the candidates for county offices, and their contributors.”

The proposal by Grindle’s TINCUP Campaign Reform Committee also would extend county political fund-raising rules for the first time to candidates for seats other than the Board of Supervisors. Unlike TINCUP, which covers only supervisorial races, the new proposal also would include the district attorney, sheriff and other countywide offices.

TINCUP puts no limit on the size of political contributions to supervisorial candidates, but requires board members to abstain from matters involving any contributor who gives more than $1,944 over a four-year period. The threshold amount increases annually according to a cost-of-living formula, as would the amount in the proposal that Grindle is drafting.

By forcing supervisors either to abstain from votes or refuse large contributions from companies and individuals with county business, TINCUP curbed some of the huge donations that once financed supervisorial elections, and it is widely credited with broadening the county’s political base.

But the new proposal comes at a time when Grindle and other observers have become increasingly worried about TINCUP’s effectiveness.

In particular, TINCUP is vulnerable to circumvention by political action committees. That is because TINCUP, which was drafted long before PACs became major political players, did not mention the committees, and therefore leaves them unregulated.

Partly as a result, PAC contributions have grown markedly since TINCUP was adopted.

In May, The Times Orange County Edition published a series of articles showing the increase in PAC contributions to supervisorial candidates in the years since TINCUP was enacted. The series revealed, for instance, that 13.4% of all 1990 supervisorial contributions came from PACs, up from 3.9% in 1977. Because of the loophole in TINCUP, supervisors frequently and legally vote on matters that benefit the backers of those PACs.

“The newspaper articles in The Times pointed out all the problems with the ordinance,” said Grindle. “TINCUP is my baby. But it’s served its purpose and it’s time to move on.”

In her letter, Grindle told board members that she and the 15-member TINCUP steering committee set out to draft a supplement to TINCUP that would “specifically address contributions from political action committees.”

“It is obvious that we must do something to regulate PAC contributions,” Grindle said. “But the only way we have to constitutionally do this is to amend the TINCUP ordinance to limit contributions from all sources.”

Guy Ormes, supervising deputy district attorney for special assignments, agreed that limiting all contributions would be constitutionally safer than singling out PACs.

“We think that this is safer than just fixing up the old ordinance in that way,” said Ormes, whose office has been consulted by Grindle.

The proposal is likely to meet with some skepticism from members of the Board of Supervisors, all of whom have been elected and reelected under TINCUP and have a stake in preserving the status quo. But some of the supervisors have said they would prefer contribution limits because they are simpler to monitor and therefore more difficult to violate inadvertently.

Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, one of those who has argued that the complexity of TINCUP makes it difficult to monitor, said Monday that he would consider changes to the ordinance, but added that he might defer to his colleagues for their judgment.

“Since I’m not going to run anymore, I leave this to others,” said Riley, who has announced his intention to step down after his current term ends. “I don’t know whether this is something we should do or not.”

Some observers also question whether contribution limits might penalize challengers for board seats, since challengers enjoy less name recognition and use money in order to get it.

Supporters of contribution limits argue, however, that challengers almost never are able to raise as much money as incumbents and that the cap on contributions thus holds down the cost of campaigns.

Grindle’s proposal already has won tentative backing from a few experts. She has consulted with Robert M. Stern, the principal co-author of California’s Political Reform Act, on the language of the ordinance. In addition, the executive director of California Common Cause, the state’s leading campaign reform organization, gave it a strong endorsement.

“As a policy matter, I think contribution limits are very much preferable,” said Lisa Foster, Common Cause’s state executive director. “It’s much cleaner than TINCUP, and you don’t end up with the games that are being played in Orange County now with PAC contributions.”

Stern, who is co-director of the California Commission on Campaign Financing, agreed.

“It’s easier to administer,” he said. “It’s a sharper line. TINCUP has a way to get around it, in terms of letting PACs contribute.”

The constitutionality of TINCUP and other conflict-of-interest-type laws also has been questioned. A judge in Santa Barbara County recently tossed out an ordinance there modeled after Orange County’s. Local political observers, including Costa Mesa campaign lawyer Dana Reed, have argued that TINCUP also could be vulnerable to a court challenge.

Although TINCUP was upheld in a 1985 Orange County Superior Court case, Grindle acknowledged that the contribution limit approach would probably be less likely to be overturned.

Foster and Stern agreed.

“Contribution limits are absolutely constitutional,” Foster said. “There’s no question. The United States Supreme Court has said that you can limit contributions.”

Even though the proposed reform still is not complete, Grindle said she wrote to board members to advise them that one is in the works. She added that her committee hopes to have the proposed ordinance completed by Nov. 1 and put before voters next June.

If the supervisors refuse to put it on the ballot, backers of the proposal could gather signatures and attempt to qualify it for the ballot, but that is a massive undertaking and one Grindle hopes to avoid.