Activist Gathers Support in Effort to Close Loopholes in TINCUP Law

A local activist who is leading an effort to limit campaign contributions to Orange County politicians on Wednesday released a list of more than 20 local citizens and community leaders who have joined her committee and are backing the effort.

“We’ve got a cross-section of Orange County,” said Shirley L. Grindle, a former county planning commissioner who, in 1977, helped draft a county campaign law ultimately adopted by the Board of Supervisors and still in place today. “These people come from all areas of Orange County. They have experience in county government and county affairs.”

The law that Grindle helped write, known as TINCUP, prohibits county supervisors from voting on matters that involve their major contributors, but Grindle and others have expressed mounting concern that loopholes in it have allowed the law to be circumvented in recent years.

As a result, Grindle and her TINCUP steering committee are drafting a new ordinance that would cap all contributions to candidates for county offices at $1,000 per election. Contributors could give an additional $1,000 to a candidate who faces a runoff.

The limit, backers say, would help county supervisors by simplifying their fund-raising and eliminating TINCUP’s difficult-to-monitor abstention rule. It would also curtail contributions by some of Orange County’s biggest donors, most notably political action committees.

Although Grindle is spearheading the effort, she has consulted with a number of campaign reform experts. The final language of the proposed ordinance will be approved by the TINCUP steering committee, which has been expanded from its 1977 membership to include a number of new faces.

Former Rep. Jerry M. Patterson, Orange County Common Cause Chairman Bill Mitchell and former Amigos de Bolsa Chica President Lorraine Faber are among those listed as committee members, as are several executives involved in the development industry. Patricia Harrigan, president of the Orange County League of Women Voters, said she expects to join the committee as well, once she gets approval from her board of directors.

“I’m sure the League of Women Voters will be represented on the steering committee,” Harrigan said. “The league feels that there should be much more public influence in elections as opposed to what is usually considered special interests.”

Another committee member, Roger Holloway, said he, too, hopes that the proposal can help reshape county political fund-raising.

“What I hope to see accomplished is really to get some of these requests for donations brought into line,” said Holloway, who is the president of Impact Images, a firm that sets up sales offices for home builders. “I think a contribution limit would be fair for everybody.”

Without it, Holloway added, companies such as his are hit up for contributions by candidates and even by clients, who sometimes ask him to make donations to the candidates they favor.

“We’re not talking about $25. It’s $500 or $1,000 or $2,000,” Holloway said. “It gets to be a little bit much.”

The group intends to meet Oct. 27 to complete a draft of the proposed ordinance, which will then be sent to the Board of Supervisors with a request that it put the proposal on the ballot next year.