Group Rebuked for Anti-Roberti Mailer

A gun owners’ group that led a nationwide letter-writing campaign against state Sen. David A. Roberti in a June special election has been censured by the state Fair Political Practices Commission for not properly disclosing its campaign fund raising and spending.

But the FPPC cleared Californians Against Corruption of three other allegations of campaign violations.

The group inundated local voters with 430,000 letters condemning Roberti (D-Van Nuys), the powerful Senate leader who eked out a narrow victory in the district formerly represented by Alan Robbins. Gun owners were seeking political revenge against Roberti, the Senate president pro tem, for his leading role in the passage of a 1989 law banning possession and sale of military-style assault guns.

A Roberti aide acknowledged Tuesday that the letters had “a significant impact” on the race, in which Roberti beat Republican Carol Rowen, a novice candidate, by less than 4%, despite heavily outspending her.

Californians Against Corruption mailed gun owners across the nation special “Stamp Out Roberti” kits containing names and addresses of local voters and a master letter attacking Roberti as the “king of the back-room, special-interest deals in the state Senate.”

Those receiving the kits were instructed to send copies of the letter, at their own expense, to local voters.

The gun group reported to state officials in May that it spent only $5,800 in its campaign, mostly on research and telephone calls. It maintained it was not legally obliged to report the market value of the letters because they were paid for by hundreds of individuals. A gun group spokesman said the letters would have cost $172,000 if produced by a private firm.

The FPPC ruled that the funding report was improperly filed after an April 7 primary election--missing a state deadline--and that the gun group should have filed a second report prior to the June 2 runoff.

However, the state agency said it found no evidence to support other allegations by Roberti supporters, including that the gun group violated state limits on campaign contributions and was a front for the National Rifle Assn.

The FPPC did not fine the gun group but instead sent it a “warning letter,” saying the $5,800 it reported spending against Roberti was too small to justify “full enforcement action.”

“It was pretty much a clerical error,” said Californians Against Corruption leader Manny Fernandez of the reporting violation. “But that’s all they could find, because that’s all there was.”

But Roberti spokesman Steve Glazer complained that the FPPC should also have disciplined the gun group for not reporting the full market value of the letters as a contribution to Rowen.

The FPPC “simply accepted the CAC claims of what they spent” instead of investigating the group fully, Glazer said, adding that Roberti’s camp had asked for such a probe.

An FPPC spokeswoman could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening.