Wachs Wants Tax Funds Repaid by Candidates Who Spend Too Much

Saying he is trying to close a loophole in the city’s ethics law, Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs proposed Monday that candidates who exceed voter-approved limits on fund raising be barred from using tax money to help underwrite their campaigns.

At a news conference in City Hall, Wachs, a declared candidate for mayor, said his proposal would wipe out an obscure exception in the law that “makes a mockery of ethics reform.”

“You can’t have it both ways,” Wachs said. “It’s an obscenity if you choose to go over the spending limits, then you shouldn’t be able to take public financing.”

Partial public financing of campaigns was not easy for voters to accept, Wachs said, but they did so because reformers said it would mean limits on candidate spending. Such limits, reformers said, would reduce politicians’ indebtedness to special interest groups that contribute heavily to campaigns.

Under the city’s ethics reform law, candidates for mayor are eligible to receive a maximum of $667,000 each in public funds to run their primary election campaigns if they agree to spend no more than $2 million on those campaigns.

But the law contains a provision that allows all candidates to match the spending of any of their number who exceeds the limits. Under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, candidates cannot be bound by locally approved spending limits if they do not accept public money.

Under Wachs’ proposal, candidates who qualify for public financing but later exceed the spending limit would have to return any public funds.

The council agreed to the exception provision to protect against one candidate exceeding the limits and having an unfair advantage over those who are committed to it, said Robert Stern, a campaign reform advocate who helped draft the city ethics law as a member of the Cowan Commission.

The commission, appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley, recommended this exception, Stern said. “It was a fairness issue,” he said.

Vickie Rideout, campaign manager for Councilman Michael Woo, another mayoral candidate, said Wachs’ proposal is dangerously wrongheaded and that her boss will oppose it.

“It looks to me like Joel Wachs is going out of his way to create a loophole of his own,” Rideout said. “Woo wrote this provision into the law to protect the public against a rich candidate buying the election.”

The clamor over spending limits has arisen since multimillionaire businessman Richard Riordan vowed to spend more than $2 million on his own campaign for mayor and not to accept public financing.

“You should really be talking to Dick Riordan about this,” Rideout said. “We wish we could get him to abide by the limits. If he did, then we’d have real limits.”

Woo became entangled in the fracas several weeks ago when he said that if Riordan exceeded the limits, he would take advantage of the exception in the law to exceed them as well.

Monday’s news conference was the second time in the past few days that Wachs has thrust himself into the debate over campaign reform as he tries to seize the high ground on the issue.

Last week, Wachs challenged Woo to join him in voluntarily agreeing to abide by the $2-million limit no matter what.

If he refused, Woo would be a hypocrite to continue portraying himself as one of the prime authors of the city’s ethics reform law, Wachs said.

Meanwhile, Rideout accused Wachs of flip-flopping on the issue of the exemption provision.

“Joel Wachs voted for this provision too,” she said. “I think there’s no secret why he’s so hep on the limits. He’s having trouble raising money and wants to be sure others can’t raise more than the limit.”