On a Campaign-Donation Crusade : Politics: Lorraine Faber says it’s time for Huntington Beach to close fund-raising loopholes. Others in county also seek change.

Lorraine Faber, a pleasant, smiling but doggedly determined civic activist, is a regular visitor at City Hall.

She studies public documents. She scrutinizes political-donation tally sheets. From time to time, she finds things that do not appear right. She raises questions--sometimes to the news media, sometimes on the floor of City Council meetings.

Now Faber is raising one of the biggest issues of her decade-long scrutiny of Huntington Beach public records.

“I think it’s time for the city to reform its basic law on campaign donations,” Faber said. “The existing law has too many loopholes and needs changing.”

Faber is enlisting the support of other civic activists in her crusade. If she is successful, Huntington Beach will join a growing list of Orange County governments that this year are considering moves either to tighten existing laws or to draft new ones on campaign donations and spending. Together, they represent the most concerted attempt to reform the political fund-raising machinery in Orange County.

So far in 1992:

* The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 7 unanimously voted to put on the June ballot a sweeping revision of the county’s campaign law that would for the first time cap political contributions to candidates for county offices.

* The Anaheim City Council on Jan. 28 agreed to put to the voters a proposed tightening of the city’s campaign-donation law. The council also agreed to submit a term-limitation measure to the voters. Both issues are geared for the November ballot in the city.

* Santa Ana Councilman John Acosta last Wednesday urged a change in that city’s campaign-donation law. Acosta suggested limits similar to what Anaheim has proposed.

* Some Laguna Beach civic activists last week began talking about a movement to cap campaign spending in city elections. Concern about big campaign donations arose there as a result of the city’s recent rent-control election.

Lisa Foster, executive director of California Common Cause, said the current movement of local governments in Orange County for campaign contribution limits “is very exciting.”

Foster added: “It’s great that this is happening, but it’s also not surprising since the public is making its discontent clear to elected officials. The public is unhappy with how elections have been financed, and even in smaller cities the public realizes the stakes are high--that special interests can take over if there are not limits.”

In Huntington Beach, the city already has a campaign donation limit. But Faber is spearheading a movement to reform and tighten that law. Her approach borrows from the work of her friend and political soul mate, former Orange County planning commissioner Shirley L. Grindle.

“I worked to help Shirley Grindle in the late 1970s when she succeeded in getting the county to pass the TINCUP (Time Is Now, Clean Up Politics) law,” Faber explained. “I’ve been watching laws like these over many years, and I think it’s now time for Huntington Beach to revise its law.”

Campaign-donation laws put limits on how much money a person or organization may give to a candidate during a certain time. The idea behind the laws is to keep special interests from “buying” undue political influence.

Harvey Englander, a prominent Orange County political consultant, said he thinks the recent push to rewrite campaign-donation laws may boomerang on cities and county government.

“In the end, they could wind up making special interests more powerful,” Englander said. “These proposed laws are being written without any input from political consultants, and they are really being written poorly.”

Grindle, who has frequently clashed with Englander on the subject of campaign reform, disagrees.

“Our (proposed new county) law is going to be the toughest and the best in the state,” she said. “And the reason it’s good is because we didn’t let the politicians and the political consultants write it.”

Grindle added that she thinks it is good that cities in the county are now also moving to tighten their donation laws or are moving, such as Laguna Beach, to put their first law on the books.

Huntington Beach already has a city law that limits each campaign donor’s contribution to $300 per candidate. But Faber and other critics of the existing law have said the law is defective because it only limits donations during election years, and not in the off years.

“The current law is only skeletal,” Faber said. “The intent of the law was that there be a $300 limitation on donations (to political candidates) per election per contributor. But because the law has something that refers to a calendar year--a 12-month period--it means that any amount of money can be collected during the interim period.”

Faber said the existing city law also fails to prevent multiple donations by a big organization such as a development company.

“Currently, our developers are giving not only in their own name but also in their wives’ names, and in the names of every corporation and subsidiary they own,” Faber said, adding that such loopholes should be closed.

Grindle, in a separate interview, said that her countywide TINCUP campaign-reform organization will offer technical advice and support to Faber. Grindle added that she admires Faber’s civic work.

“Lorraine is very determined, very sharp and very dedicated,” Grindle said. “She’s put in a lot of time (working as a civic activist), and it’s certainly not self-centered because she gets nothing out of it.”

Faber, 52, is a native of Santa Ana and attended Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. She has lived in Huntington Beach since 1960. She, her husband, Ted, and 28-year-old son, Thor, own and operate a marine-supplies business in Seal Beach.

“I first got involved in governmental activities in Huntington Beach back in the ‘60s, when I was president of a homeowners association,” Faber said. She said the association was trying to get the city to build a park in the neighborhood. In the process of working for the park, Faber said she learned about grass-roots government--and became involved as a civic activist.

Subsequently, Faber joined the environmental group, Amigos de Bolsa Chica, and served as president for three years. She is still on the board of directors.

Her environmental and civic work have brought her enemies as well as admirers. Her critics include some officials of development companies, who privately say they regard her as a gadfly and troublemaker.

Faber said she knows she sometimes becomes controversial because of issues she raises.

“I don’t enjoy doing things like this because I don’t enjoy having to point out problems,” Faber said. “It’s a lot easier just to pat people on the back. But it’s necessary and important to a community to learn about its problems. So I consider what I do worthwhile and important.”