ANAHEIM : Campaign Spending Limit to Be Weighed

Responding to overwhelming public sentiment in favor of controlling campaign spending, the City Council tonight will consider an ordinance that would prohibit council and mayoral candidates’ receiving more than a $1,000 donation from any single contributor.

By a 4-1 margin, Anaheim voters last November approved an advisory measure calling for such a limit. Some candidates have been spending more than $200,000 to be elected mayor or councilman; the part-time jobs pay $750 a month.

A majority of the council has said it will respect the voters’ wishes and will enact a limit. It would be a misdemeanor to violate the ordinance.

City Atty. Jack L. White, who wrote the proposed ordinance, said Monday that it is patterned after the Orange County ordinance that limits campaign contributions to candidates for supervisors and also tries to limit contributions from a single firm and its owners by lumping them together under the same $1,000 limit.

For example, it would allow husbands and wives to give $1,000 each but would prohibit business partners’ giving more than $1,000 combined. Also, donations given by a company would count against its owners’ contributions. However, a company’s employees will each be allowed to give $1,000 under most circumstances, White said.

Separate employee contributions above the $1,000 limit would be “legal as long as the company is not going to reimburse the employee and it is not coercing the employee to make the contribution,” White said. “Companies have given themselves great grief trying to get around these ordinances (in other cities).”

Because of court decisions, the ordinance cannot limit the amount of money a candidate can give to his or her own campaign, nor can it limit the amount of money a candidate can spend, White said.

Sharon Ericson, president of the Anaheim Employees Assn., the city’s largest municipal employee union and a major donor in previous campaigns, said Monday that her group is no longer considering filing suit against the city if it enacts the limit, something it had threatened to do last summer.

“We don’t want to go against the voters,” she said. “But I don’t think they understand that the limit will only help incumbents.”

She said incumbents will still have have four years to raise donations for their reelection campaigns, while challengers often don’t decide to seek election until six months before Election Day.

“So incumbents are still going to have the most money,” she said.

The meeting will begin at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 200 S. Anaheim Blvd.