CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : Playing Fast With Loose Spending Rules : Funds: Incumbents are more likely to give campaign cash to other candidates than use it for own ads. Election laws require only that money is spent for a ‘political purpose.’

California congressional candidates may be raising campaign funds at a record pace, but that does not mean that all the money is being used to woo voters for Tuesday’s election. Far from it.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Burlingame) has channeled $28,000 from his campaign coffers to the state Democratic Party and numerous candidates in New Hampshire--including three gubernatorial contenders. Lantos, who helped get son-in-law Dick Swett (D-N.H.) elected to Congress in 1990, is apparently seeking to enhance Swett’s standing in Granite State politics.

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), the third-ranking Republican leader in the House, dipped into his campaign treasury to take his congressional staff on a two-day summer retreat in the Virginia countryside in 1991. Lewis called the “brainstorming” session “probably the best campaign dollars one might spend.” The total tab: $9,150.

And Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Rocklin), one of the seven freshmen lawmakers who blew the whistle on abuses of House perks, used $9,206 in campaign funds to pay Pacific Storage to transport and store his personal belongings when he moved to Washington from California in 1991.

The three lawmakers have plenty of company among their 33 California colleagues seeking reelection when it comes to dispensing campaign largess, according to a computer-assisted survey by The Times of the nearly $35 million spent by Golden State candidates as of Oct. 15.

Despite widespread anti-incumbent sentiment, many longtime lawmakers are still more likely to donate money to other candidates or charities, buy meals or plane tickets, or, in one instance, spring for prize-winning rabbits, than they are to pay for bumper stickers, mailings, radio ads or other conventional campaign trappings.

“You would expect that members would be more concerned about their ‘legitimate’ use of campaign funds in an era in which public anger and disgust at their perks of office are at an all-time high,” said Ellen Miller, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group that supports campaign reform.

“If money is used in these ways for non-direct campaign expenses, it raises the costs of campaigns and means they have to raise even more money from special interests.”

This pattern is hardly unique to California. Incumbents nationwide routinely take advantage of election laws that require only that campaign funds be used for a loosely defined “political purpose.”

In addition, House rules require that a member “shall expend no funds from his campaign account not attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes.” Some expenditures of campaign funds for non-campaign purposes clearly garner at least indirect political benefits.

Relying heavily on special-interest political action committees, most incumbents maintain permanent campaign operations to rake in contributions throughout the two-year election cycle--generally harvesting far more than their challengers could ever hope to raise.

Many lawmakers, usually those with overwhelming voter registration advantages, have not felt the need to dig too deeply into their campaign coffers to court voters.

The average incumbent has spent less than a quarter of his or her $462,032 total costs on campaign advertising, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Also, 28% has been used for fund-raising expenses and 21% for overhead.

In contrast, California candidates in races for 16 open seats--half of which are hotly contested--have tended to channel far higher percentages of their campaign funds into directly soliciting voters.

The average candidate seeking an open seat has spent half of his or her $503,874 total on radio, television, mail and newspaper advertising. Only 8% has gone for fund raising and 24% for overhead, including salaries, office rent, telephones and taxes.

Republican Steve Horn, a political science professor running in the Long Beach-based 38th District, has efficiently marshaled a stunning 86% of his $249,876 in expenditures for advertising and campaigning by relying on a distinctly home-grown approach. Until recently, he has run the campaign out of his residence and his son’s Long Beach apartment, and has relied extensively on family and volunteers rather than consultants.

Not all incumbents enjoy the luxury of being able to take voters largely for granted this year. Reapportionment and public anger have thrust about a dozen members of the congressional delegation into uncomfortably tight races--and their spending patterns show it.

Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento), the state’s most powerful member of Congress, is fighting to stave off a 3rd District challenge from former Republican state Sen. H.L. (Bill) Richardson. Fazio has earmarked nearly half of his $1.2 million for radio and TV advertising and persuasion mail, and spent $192,313 on expensive fund-raising events.

Even 10-term Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale), who is not thought to be endangered, has stepped up his spending considerably after he was given a less solidly conservative district. Moorhead has spent $522,258--45% of it for direct campaigning--against under-financed Democrat Doug Kahn in the GOP-leaning 27th District that includes Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena.

Still, half the state’s incumbents who are seeking reelection have spent less than a third of their campaign funds directly trying to influence voters, including six candidates who spent less than 10%. Conversely, only six have spent more than 50% on advertising and campaigning.

Lantos, who has devoted only 14% of his funds to direct campaigning, donated $12,500 to the New Hampshire Democratic Party and made eight contributions totaling $15,500 to candidates in the state. This included $5,000 to one contender and $2,500 each to two others in a Democratic gubernatorial primary and two $1,000 contributions to two mayoral candidates in Nashua, N.H., which is within his son-in-law Swett’s congressional district.

Repeated efforts to reach Lantos and Swett were unsuccessful.

Lewis, who is chairman of the House Republican Conference, said his two-day retreat “was a major effort to bring all of my Washington staff together far from the telephones, away from the office, where we could communicate with one another about the work we do . . . to coordinate and interrelate the work my conference does and my office does and how that may affect my constituency.”

His campaign paid $680 for cabin lodging, $1,481 for catering and $6,990 for a firm that was hired to lead the discussion.

Lewis has also spent $23,731 of his campaign funds for meals, most at tony Washington restaurants. He said he was entertaining visiting constituents, colleagues and lobbyists. He said he wined and dined the lobbyists either “to tap them for information” or to get “to know those who influence others on giving money to campaigns.”

Doolittle, who faces a tough rematch with Democrat Patricia Malberg in the 4th District, has spent 51% of his funds on direct voter contact. The lawmaker, who was first elected to Congress in 1990, reported that his campaign paid for “storage and moving” costs on Nov. 11, 1991. An aide said this was to transport Doolittle’s personal belongings.

Doolittle could not be reached for comment.

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), whose 26th District in the east San Fernando Valley is safely Democratic, has given away $305,371, or 53% of his total spending. Most has gone to other Democratic candidates, including $152,251 to Californians. In contrast, he has spent only $22,014, or 4% of his total, directly contacting voters.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) has shown similar generosity, donating $296,303, 59% of his spending, to other candidates and causes. Berman and Waxman--who built a liberal political alliance on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley partially through such campaign largess--gave $140,000 to state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), a longtime ally who narrowly lost a June state Senate primary race to Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica).

“There’s a benefit in a number of ways for me to help progressive Democrats,” said Waxman, who also raises funds and stumps for party candidates. “First of all, they vote for or fight for the issues I care about. Secondly, when you help somebody you develop a good working relationship with them.”

Critics of this practice say it is tantamount to trying to buy influence in the House.

Among other noteworthy incumbent expenditures:

* Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Berkeley) has spent $679,166 in campaign funds despite minimal opposition, including $61,971 for travel--more than the $51,626 he has spent for direct campaigning.

H. Lee Halterman, Dellums’ district counsel, said the lawmaker spent large sums on fund-raising costs as well as on get-out-the-vote and other political efforts in the community. He said the travel costs were incurred by Dellums and staff members during the Democratic National Convention in New York and on other political business.

* Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), chairman of the House Budget Committee, spent 54% of his funds on direct voter contact but also used campaign funds to pay for meals and lodging at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and the Maui Prince Hotel in Hawaii. He reported the $56 and $45 charges in Israel as “meal related to conference” and the $342 and $679 bills in Hawaii as “lodging and meals for conference with the Japanese Diet.”

* Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) spent $961,591 in direct mail costs to raise just over $1 million. Dornan has used his high-powered national fund-raising operation to dissuade potential challengers and to build up a network of conservative supporters.

* Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento) shelled out $20,302 on gifts for constituents and supporters, including cookbooks and sports books on such subjects as Mickey Mantle.

* Rep. Gary A. Condit (D-Ceres), who is running unopposed, has a 15-year tradition of buying the prize-winning rabbits at the Stanislaus County Fair Junior Livestock Auction. In 1991, Condit’s campaign paid $600 to take the longhairs off the auction block and return them to the children who raised them.

“The law itself contains nothing that gives clear direction on what money can or cannot be spent for,” said Fred Eiland of the Federal Election Commission. “In the past, the commission has always held that the (campaign) committees have broad latitude to determine how they spend their money.”

However, he said that this year a newly constituted commission split 3 to 3 over whether a campaign committee could pay the candidate a salary. Therefore, he said, “there is no clear-cut answer now.”

Times researchers Mureille Gamache, Charlotte Huff and Michael Cheek contributed to this story.