Cleaning Up Elections: There’s Only One Way : California should embed campaign reform in Constitution

Ten years ago, conservative political scientist Aaron Wildavsky wrote a book, “How to Limit Government Spending,” making the case for a constitutional amendment limiting the federal budget to a fixed percentage of the gross national product. Our Founding Fathers, Wildavsky argued, clearly favored limited government and just as clearly did not foresee that the unlimited growth of public spending could undo their work. The imposition of a spending limit was thus properly a constitutional matter.

Like Wildavsky, we do not believe that every good idea is a politically constitutive idea. California’s Constitution now contains an amendment banning drift-net fishing. We favor the ban but not the amendment: Dolphin welfare is not politically constitutive.

Nothing is more politically constitutive, however, than elections themselves; and for this reason, we favor a constitutional amendment on campaign reform that a bipartisan legislative coalition seeks to offer for voter approval in November.

A recent poll on campaign reform showed 80% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans in favor, specifically, of contribution limits, expenditure limits and partial public financing of campaigns. In 1988, moreover, two campaign reform initiatives were on the ballot, and both passed.

Thereon, however, hangs a sad tale. Proposition 68 imposed contribution limits and created a quid-pro-quo system by which candidates who accepted voluntary expenditure limits would receive partial public financing. Proposition 73 also imposed contribution limits but, unlike Proposition 68, actually banned public financing. In 1990 the California Supreme Court ruled that because Proposition 73 received more votes than Proposition 68, 73 was operative and 68 inoperative. But another court decision ruled that because 73 measured contributions on a fiscal year basis, it was unconstitutional. It was Catch-22 time.

Now, the voters may get a second chance. Senate Constitutional Amendment 4, which has reached the floor of the Senate with the backing of GOP Minority Leader Ken Maddy as well as Democratic Majority Leader Barry Keene, has a good chance of winning the two-thirds majority necessary for passage when it is voted on this week or next. If the Assembly also approves it by July, the amendment goes to voters in November.

If voters approve, then the Legislature will have its marching orders. It will be required to draft and pass legislation imposing contribution and spending limits (which many Republicans don’t like), limits on fund transfers among candidates (which many Democrats don’t like) and partial public financing (which nobody much likes but which the courts have ruled is required to allow the imposition of spending limits).

Some individual legislators remain opposed, of course. But what the bipartisan coalition seeks for the Legislature as a whole is the long-term recovery of independence and self-respect. Our lawmakers are now forced to report to one constituency when in office and to another when reaching office. Barely 10% of all campaign money comes in contributions of $100 or less; 90% of incumbent war chests is big money from outside the district.

Free legislators from that trap, and they may stop quitting in despair, even as voters stop staying home in disgust. We’ve tried twice before. Will the third time be the charm?