ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : First Step on a Positive Path

In reading his mandate for change last fall, Anaheim’s new mayor, Tom Daly, said that campaign finance reform was on his short list of things to accomplish. No wonder. The same election tide that brought him in was accompanied by a strong separate message from voters to clean up the electoral process. By a huge 4-1 margin last November, voters approved an advisory measure calling for a $1,000 donation limit from any single contributor to council and mayoral candidates.

The moment of truth is now at hand for the Anaheim City Council, which is expected today to approve the reform at long last. The proposal ought to pass, even if the $1,000 limit is not as tough as it could be. Remember that this is a city so accustomed to operating under the influence of big money that any reasonable system for introducing sanity and accountability into the political process is progress. Anaheim’s campaign spending has been so out of control that even big spenders have complained openly about it.

The $1,000 cap is not as desirable as, say, half as much. Still, it is the one that voters acted on in November. It may be the best that Anaheim can get now, given its storied recent history of big-dollar politics. And the cap, patterned on the welcome ceiling set by county voters last June on candidates for the County Board of Supervisors, would affect significantly the very sort of huge contributions that have flooded Anaheim politics in the past.

As a practical matter, Anaheim has found enough ways of stalling reform already, even as its officials professed the need for it. For example, while nearby Santa Ana went straight to legislation last November, Anaheim put off the inevitable by making its campaign finance reform referendum advisory only. In recent weeks, the city fathers have been more concerned with getting a law that would allow them to pay off old campaign debts than with finding an appropriate cap.

So reform is coming slowly, but the council unmistakably has read the tea leaves. The legislation may not be perfect. But for a city dazzled by the influence of campaign contributions, it’s a welcome start.