HUNTINGTON BEACH : Campaign-Funding Law Change Rejected

The City Council this week rejected a proposed change to its campaign-contributions law after a group of residents argued that the amendment would have created a loophole giving incumbents an unfair fund-raising advantage over council challengers.

The proposal had sought to clarify the time period during which council candidates are limited to receiving $300 per contributor.

The amendment was introduced two weeks ago without discussion. But before council members considered the measure for final approval at their meeting Monday, three residents pointed out that it was flawed.

The city’s existing ordinance states that candidates are bound to spending limits during a period ambiguously defined as “12 months prior and subsequent to any election.”

City Atty. Gail C. Hutton, at the request of Councilwoman Linda Moulton-Patterson, ruled that the law should be interpreted as a 12-month period covering six months before and six months after an election. Hutton’s clarification was proposed as an amendment to the campaign-contribution ordinance.

As opponents noted, however, that definition would mean that during the three years of an incumbent’s four-year term, there would effectively be no fund-raising cap because an election would not be forthcoming.

“This has been treated as a minor matter, but it’s a very important matter,” said Victor Leipzig, a Planning Commission member who said he was speaking as a citizen. “This is not mechanistic but would mean a substantial change in the process.”

Lorraine Faber, a longtime watchdog of council campaigns, noted that during the three years without a spending cap, incumbents could accumulate a financial advantage not available to council challengers. “We should have a level playing field for all candidates,” she said.

After hearing those comments, council members voted unanimously to reject the proposed amendment. Moulton-Patterson said the change would have cleared up the ordinance’s ambiguity, as she requested, but agreed that it also would create an unfair loophole.

As it stands, the campaign-contribution ordinance remains ambiguous and still allows a window of at least two years during which an incumbent is not technically bound to spending limits, Faber said.

Faber acknowledged that no candidates have taken advantage of the time-limit loophole, “but it opens the door for a period in which there is no lid on contributions.”

Some council members agreed and called on city staff members to draft a new law that would close the loophole.

“We still need to address the problems raised here . . . to cover the entire four years of the election period,” Mayor Pro Tem Grace Winchell said.