Jesse Unruh

I read George Skelton’s column (Dec. 2) and agree with his main point of the need for public financing of campaigns. However, I take exception with his lines about my father: “The word in those days was that the price for guaranteeing a bill’s passage through the Assembly was a $10,000 contribution to the political coffer of the late Speaker Jesse M. Unruh (D-Inglewood). I never knew whether that was true, but I didn’t doubt it.”

Frankly, that was a cheap shot at someone who’s not here to defend himself from rumors. Even more that that, I’m surprised that Skelton, with his years of experience in Sacramento, would write as if he only remembers my father’s line about money as the mother’s milk of politics while forgetting his less polite line to freshman legislators about resisting lobbyists. Please let me refresh his memory with the following: “If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, take their money and then look them in the eye and vote against them you have no business being here.”

I worked for Sen. David Roberti (D-Van Nuys), both on his district staff and in his fund-raising operations. I have met all the named principals of Skelton’s article and I must say that I also found his use of Alan Robbins’ statements to lump Roberti in with convicted felons to be offensive. I did not always agree with his political positions but I always found Roberti to have a strong sense of personal ethics and morals toward his public and private responsibilities. Please understand, I did not say this out of self-interest since I left Roberti’s staff under less than pleasant circumstances. As for Robbins, he failed to explain that delivering votes and support were also necessary for receiving “perks” in the Senate. What he called “perks,” such as increased staff, are generally considered to be necessary when one is given increased responsibility, which was the case with Robbins. It is the facts of politics, not Roberti’s ethics, which are in question.

Skelton would have gotten no argument from my father on the need for public financing of campaigns. I’m just amazed he would dredge up old gossip to try make his point. That has never been the way to influence public opinion toward positive changes. In the future, Skelton might consider his own journalistic ethics before he throws more stones in an attempt to make a point. That is, if he is genuinely concerned about helping change what needs to be changed.

RANDALL UNRUH, Santa Monica