Ethics Official Urges Rejection of Wachs’ Plan : Campaigns: The councilman’s proposal to tighten spending would put poorer candidates at a disadvantage, Benjamin Bycel says.

The city’s top ethics official on Friday urged rejection of a plan by Councilman Joel Wachs to tighten a key campaign-spending rule--a plan that has provoked sharp sparring between candidates in the mayor’s race.

Benjamin Bycel, executive director of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission, advised against Wachs’ plan, saying it would put poorer candidates at a financial disadvantage. It also would be unwise to change the ethics rules now because the 1993 political season has already begun, Bycel argued in a memo released Friday.

Under Wachs’ proposal, candidates who spend more than $2 million while in the mayor’s race would be ineligible to receive public campaign financing, worth up to $667,000.

Nonetheless, Bycel said Wachs’ plan has some merit and poses “a tough question” that might be worth consideration in the future.

Wachs, who represents the east San Fernando Valley, is among the top-seeded contenders in a field of 22 candidates that includes Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Panorama City) and Julian Nava, a Northridge resident and former ambassador to Mexico.

Meanwhile, the city’s Ethics Commission, meeting Friday with only three of its five members, took no position on Wachs’ plan. Acting chairwoman Cynthia Telles said she wanted the full panel present to discuss the matter.

The Los Angeles City Council is set to hear Wachs’ plan Wednesday. The commission will not discuss the plan before the council meets but still may have an opportunity to make a recommendation before the council takes final action.

Wachs has repeatedly scolded Councilman Michael Woo in recent days for refusing to pledge--no matter what other candidates might do--to honor the city’s $2-million campaign-spending limit set for mayoral candidates who accept public financing.

But under city ethics rules, candidates who don’t accept public financing can spend more than $2 million. If such a candidate emerges, however, it legally frees the other candidates to match that spending and still receive public financing themselves.

In their struggle for the high ground on an esoteric ethics issue, Wachs on Monday proposed restricting public funds to candidates breaking the $2-million barrier. But Woo sharply counterattacked Friday, contending that Wachs’ plan would aid well-heeled candidates.

The matter of busting the cap has only come up because multimillionaire businessman Richard Riordan has said he won’t abide by the cap or take public money.

If Wachs’ plan were in effect, rich candidates could simply outspend their rivals and “buy the election” while less well-off candidates abide by the $2-million cap, Woo maintained.

Woo also urged Wachs to take a pledge himself--that he would let the Ethics Commission, not the City Council, decide the fate of his proposed rule change. Wachs refused.

Woo called it “crazy” to let “a bunch of political council members make the rules.”