Hearing Is Set on Golding Backers’ Suit Over Campaign Spending Limits

Supporters of San Diego mayoral candidate Susan Golding will have to wait at least 2 1/2 weeks to learn whether they will be able to remove a legal hurdle blocking them from financing an independent effort to defeat her opponent, Peter Navarro.

During a brief court session Friday, San Diego County Superior Court Judge Wayne Peterson scheduled a Sept. 29 hearing on a lawsuit seeking to overturn a legal opinion by City Atty. John Witt preventing Golding backers who have already given the maximum $250 contribution to her campaign from also donating to independent anti-Navarro efforts.

David Dick, the local lawyer on whose behalf the lawsuit was filed, had hoped for a quicker resolution to allow sufficient time for any independent effort in the Nov. 3 mayoral contest. But Dick said after the hearing that he is “not that concerned about the (delay), because we’re not talking about a huge undertaking.”

“There still would be time to do something” if Peterson rules favorably Sept. 29, Dick said.

Under city election laws, individuals may contribute a maximum of $250 per election to candidates. In June, Witt’s office issued a written legal opinion holding that the provision also prevents individuals from donating additional money to independent committees benefiting the same candidate by working against an opponent. Without that additional restriction, Witt argues, the $250 contribution limit would be meaningless and easily circumvented.

Dick, however, contends that the campaign ordinance does not directly address the question raised by an individual wanting to give $250 to one candidate and up to another $250 to an independent group working against a rival candidate.

Witt’s interpretation, which treats contributions to independent committees opposing one candidate as being tantamount to donations to a rival, “essentially read something into the ordinance that is not there,” Dick argues in the lawsuit. By so doing, Dick charges, the city attorney’s position infringes upon free-speech rights.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor, however, has called the lawsuit “a cheap political assault on City Hall” by special interests aimed at circumventing “limits (which) were put in place to prevent scandal and influence peddling.”

Navarro calls the lawsuit “a blatant attempt by developers to try to buy City Hall.”

“I’m a little surprised by the efforts to politicize this,” Dick said.