Surprise! Spending Limits Work : Campaign finance: Now, let’s fine-tune the system when there are candidates with unlimited personal wealth.

Last week, outgoing City Council member Ernani Bernardi asked his colleagues to scrap key parts of the city’s new campaign-finance law, but the council wisely referred the motion to the Ethics Commission for review.

As participants in drafting the new law, we are confident that the commission and the council will find that it succeeded in several important respects. The law worked even better than we had hoped in the City Council races. The expenditure limit of $360,000 for primary elections meant that no one even approached the record amounts spent by former council member Art Snyder ($464,451 to win in 1983) and Richard Alatorre ($552,499 to win 1987). The combined limit for primary and general elections of $660,000 was also far lower than the $801,748 spent by former council member Pat Russell in her ’87 losing effort.

The amount of private (and often special-interest) money raised by council candidates was reduced. Besides putting a cap on spending, the matching funds replaced money that candidates in the past had raised from private sources. All eight candidates in the June runoff accepted public money, including the two successful challengers, Rudy Svorinich and Laura Chick. In addition, since the new law bans fund-raising in non-election years, it helped cut the ties between campaign money and governmental decisions.

Moreover, the law created a level playing field, removing one of the advantages of political incumbents. Opponents had claimed it would help incumbents, but as its supporters predicted, the law actually aided challengers by eliminating the huge fund-raising advantage of officeholders. For the first time in recent memory, two incumbents lost their reelection bids. Money helps explain these results. During the previous three council elections, incumbents outraised challengers by margins of more than three to one. This year, thanks to the new law, challengers raised as much money as incumbents.

We believe the law succeeded in other ways as well. It mandated debates; it required candidates to file all mailings with the Ethics Commission, thus discouraging blatantly false claims, and, contrary to the fears that the KKK or the Nazis would be supported by public money, no radical or fringe candidate qualified for public funds.

Though this is a new, complicated law and many candidates appeared on the ballot, the Ethics Commission handled the reports and requests for funds smoothly.

Unfortunately, no campaign-finance law could have prevented what happened in the mayor’s race. Because of a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, candidates can contribute as much as they want to their own campaigns. Richard Riordan pumped in more than $6 million of his own money. Once he went over the limits, Mike Woo was allowed to exceed the limits, and he did. As a result, the mayoral campaign was easily the costliest in Los Angeles history.

While we know of no constitutional way to prevent a super-rich candidate from changing the rules of the game and writing a blank check, we think the legislation can be improved through modest amendments.

First, the law should prevent candidates from lending more than $25,000 to their own campaigns. Riordan loaned $2 million to his campaign, and he could have asked city contractors and others who do business with the city to help him pay off his campaign debt. To his credit, he forgave the debt to himself.

While we can’t do anything about candidates who want to contribute to their own campaigns, we can limit the amount they can lend. Kentucky has such a restriction.

Second, we suggest that the city ban all contributions from people who contract with or bid on contracts with the city. This is the law in other jurisdictions.

Finally, we recommend that limits be placed on how much any person can contribute to the officeholder account of elected officials. Current law allows elected city officials to collect up to $25,000 a year for officeholder expenses, but the city attorney has ruled that these funds are not subject to any contribution limitations. The rules that govern campaigns should apply to officeholder accounts.

But the heart of the law should be left alone. The reforms worked well in the City Council elections and they can be made more effective in all races. Repeal of the law or weakening amendments would permit incumbents to return to the “good old days” when they could outraise and outspend their challengers by enormous margins. If the council changes the law at all, it should strengthen it to ensure that Los Angeles retains the toughest and most comprehensive campaign finance law in the country.