A Wealthy Candidate Is No Reason to Dump L.A.’s Campaign Laws : Politics: Even before the mayoral contest begins, some people seek to suspend the donor rules, tilting the playing field toward special interests.

Moves to alter Los Angeles’ campaign-finance law seem to share a common subtext: Suspend the rules governing city elections and undercut the spirit of the law. But the law should be given a chance as written, warts and all, because changing it in the midst of an election campaign smacks more of political self-interest than civic responsibility.

It is not surprising that a law intended to impose spending limits would be thrown into question by a candidate who could spend at will. But much of the current maneuvering is calculated to give one or more candidates an edge when running against a personal fortune.

The goal of the city’s campaign finance law, passed by voters in 1985, is to limit undue influence by campaign donors. Typically, more than half the contributors to city elections are people who do business with City Hall. In past years, 97% of L.A. business money went to incumbents, which accounted for two-thirds of their total campaign war chest, according to a 1989 report published by the California Commission on Campaign Financing.

Many of these business interests give to every viable candidate in a race as a reasonable strategy for staying in business. Candidates are forced to go to them because that is where the money is. Others don’t seem to care.

The partial public-financing provision contained in the 1990 ethics law, also passed by voters, alleviates the appearance of undue influence by providing neutral--that is, taxpayer--money. Perhaps even more important, it seeks to make elections more competitive by providing enough money for challengers to achieve minimum name recognition, thus creating a level playing field.

By accepting public money, a candidate enters into a contract with government, which imposes spending limits on the campaign. In Los Angeles, the caps are $2 million for the mayoral race, $900,000 for city attorney, $800,000 for controller and $300,000 for council primary races, with lower limits for the runoffs.

These numbers are rooted in the city’s recent electoral history. The $2-million limit for the mayor’s race, for example, is based on Pat Russell’s unsuccessful $800,000 defense, in 1988, of her council seat against Ruth Galanter. Factoring in inflation and the absence of an incumbent, it is reasonable to expect that candidates for a citywide would spend much more--like $2 million.

It should be noted that Galanter spent only $125,000--and won. The lesson is that more money is not necessarily a guarantor of victory. Money buys recognition, but once the voters know who the candidates are, they often make up their own minds.

Enter mayoral candidate Richard Riordan, the inspiration behind current efforts to change the finance law. Riordan is rich. He will not take public money and thus will not be bound by the $2-million spending cap. His opponents fear he will spend upward of $3 million.

The law tries to discourage a candidate from using a fortune to buy an election in two ways. If a candidate spends $30,000 of his or her own money on their campaign, the cap on individual contributions (in the case of the mayor’s race, $1,000) is waived. The new ceiling becomes the maximum amount a political donor can give in a city election--$7,000.

Second, if a candidate who does not accept public financing spends $1 million, all spending limits are off. Since Riordan’s opponents expect he will spend $3 million and the extra million would probably be spent in the closing week of the primary campaign, they would have to begin raising that money now to effectively counter him.

City Councilman Joel Wachs, a mayoral candidate, wants to make the public-financing provision moot. If a candidate who accepts public money exceeds the $2-million limit because the spending cap is no longer in force, Wachs would require the candidate to give back his taxpayer money, which could be as high as $667,000 in the primary. Wachs argues that voters approved the 1990 ethics code because they were primarily concerned about too much campaign spending, not undue influence.

But the goal of public financing, many people would argue, is precisely to limit undue influence, a position upheld by courts. We equate money with communication, and democracy is not served by limiting communication about candidates.

Council members Zev Yaroslavsky and Nate Holden, also a candidate for mayor, have come up with an alternative proposal to deal with the candidate with deep pockets. If the $30,000-personal-spending limit is exceeded, they propose that individual contributors be allowed to give any amount of money to match the wealthy candidate. This, however, would return city politics to the days when special interests knew no limits.

The City Council may pass Wachs’ or Yaroslavsky’s proposal because they like them, or don’t like Michael Woo, a front-runner target, or because they are all thinking about their own political futures. That’s the way law is often made, and it is unfortunate at this point that a candidate has come along and forced us to focus on the small print before we all got used to the new rules.

Lost in all the discussion, however, is the real question of where should the level playing field be, at the floor to benefit challengers, or at the ceiling to equalize front-runners? The former would enhance competition in elections by giving challengers a viable chance against incumbents. The later would reopen the can of worms of undue influence. It would be a tragedy if the city’s public-finance law were undercut even before we got through one election.