O.C. Campaign Reform Backed by Supervisors

Four of the five Orange County Supervisors said Monday that they support a proposed overhaul of the county campaign finance system and will vote today to put the measure on the June ballot.

“I think it’s a good proposal that’s consistent and fair,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez said of the proposed ordinance. “I think it streamlines the process.”

Vasquez’s views were echoed by Supervisors Roger R. Stanton, Thomas F. Riley and Harriett M. Wieder, all three saying they plan to support the proposal, which would cap all contributions to candidates for county office at $1,000 per election.

The statements by those four supervisors set the stage for what will probably be the board’s final debate on the subject today. Only Supervisor Don R. Roth’s position remains in doubt, as he declined to indicate Monday how he expected to vote.

Roth said he prefers allowing unlimited contributions and regulating them only by forcing candidates to disclose all the money they receive. He added that he believes that any contribution limit favors incumbents by denying challengers the money they need to get name recognition.

The proposed cap, which would be the first countywide contribution limit imposed in Orange County, would apply to individuals, companies and political action committees. It would for the first time extend county campaign laws to candidates for district attorney, sheriff and other offices, and is largely designed to end the growing practice of PACs funneling thousands of dollars in unregulated contributions to county officers.

The growth of PAC contributions was documented in a Times Orange County investigation last May. That investigation found that PACs had increased their annual giving to candidates for county supervisor by 684% since 1977, the year before the county’s current campaign rules were enacted.

The existing county campaign law, known as TINCUP, does not limit contributions. It requires supervisors to abstain from voting on matters that involve major donors--except when those contributors are PACs. Supervisors have accepted large sums from PACs and still voted on matters that involve the directors and backers of those committees.

“That certainly has received harsh criticism recently, thanks to the press,” Riley acknowledged. “I think the proposal would help get rid of that criticism, and it would be good in the interest of fairness.”

Stanton, Vasquez and Wieder agreed and said they would vote for the ordinance despite lobbying against it by two of Orange County’s leading campaign consultants.

Those consultants, Harvey A. Englander and Dana W. Reed, each have written to the supervisors in recent days urging them to reject or amend the campaign reform proposal, which was drafted by former Orange County Planning Commissioner Shirley L. Grindle and an ad-hoc citizens’ panel she chairs. Grindle also was the leading proponent of the original TINCUP ordinance.

“It is clear to me that many of Ms. Grindle’s proposals are clearly unconstitutional, and many more are simply unworkable,” Englander wrote in a letter to the supervisors.

In his letter and in an interview Monday, Reed was equally critical, saying he views sections of the proposal as sexist and others as “absolutely, positively unconstitutional.”

In particular, Reed attacked a section of the ordinance that subjects a husband and wife to the $1,000 limit that is imposed on individuals. He also singled out a provision that considers contributions by children under the age of 18 as if they had been made by their parents. The result of those provisions is that in most cases families could not contribute more than $1,000 to a single candidate.

“That is outrageous,” Reed said of the proposal to combine the contributions of husbands and wives. “I have some female clients who are going to absolutely come off the wall about that. It has to be changed.”

Reed raised several other objections to the wording of the ordinance and argued that if voters approve the reform measure, the supervisors should be allowed to amend the law if and when problems arise.

That suggestion, however, was adamantly rejected by Grindle.

“We would absolutely object to anything that would let further amendments to this be handled by any elected officials,” Grindle said. “We want to take this out of the political arena. . . . The board members remove themselves from suspicion when they allow the process to be in the hands of the voters.”

Grindle also dismissed Reed’s objections on constitutional grounds, saying the ordinance has been reviewed by both the county counsel’s office and the district attorney’s office, and neither has raised objections to its constitutionality.

“Mr. Reed is not wearing a black robe, even though he talks like he is,” Grindle said.

If the supervisors approve the proposal, it will go to county voters in June. Because the original TINCUP ordinance had qualified for the ballot when the supervisors adopted it in 1977, it can only be changed by a countywide vote.