Ethics Panel Denies Funds for Holden’s Council Race

Los Angeles Councilman Nate Holden’s reelection bid hit a snag Wednesday when the city Ethics Commission ruled that the embattled incumbent was ineligible to get up to $125,000 in tax dollars to underwrite his political campaign.

Holden said later that he will sue in federal court to overturn the commission’s ruling.

Holden is locked in a fierce fight with attorney J. Stanley Sanders for the 10th District council seat after none of three candidates in the April 11 primary got more than 50% of the vote. Holden and Sanders, the two top vote-getters, will face each other in the June 6 general election.

At stake for Holden is access to $125,000 under the city’s law that provides for some public financing of political campaigns. That is a sizable sum in a City Council race, political observers said.

Sanders already is eligible to receive the $125,000. In the primary, Sanders got nearly $100,000 from the public financing program, accounting for about a third of his primary budget.

But Holden originally refused to accept the matching funds, mistakenly believing that his decision would deny Sanders access to the same money.

Now, the incumbent has changed his mind and wants to participate in the program.

But at Wednesday’s commission hearing, an attorney for Sanders said Holden should not get the money. The city requires candidates to decide once--at the beginning of the election cycle--whether they will take the funds, attorney Robert Pryce said.

Having rejected the money once before the primary, Holden should not get a second chance to tap into the funds for the general election, Pryce said.

City Ethics Commission President Dennis Curtis reiterated that argument but added that giving Holden a second chance could undercut the law’s purposes.

The law was designed to level the financial playing field for candidates, limit spending and give candidates more time to talk to voters instead of raising money.

To accomplish these purposes, those who take the public money must accept a limit on how much they spend and agree to public debates. For candidates who agree, the city provides matching funds to supplement contributions received from private sources.

But for Holden to get the public money now after agreeing to play by the rules only in the second half of the election is unfair--especially after Sanders agreed to the regulations for both elections, Curtis said. Granting Holden’s request would “let candidates flout the rules in the primary and then try to get the benefits of the system in the general,” Curtis said.

Holden maintained that if he agrees to the rules now, the public good intended by the law would still be served.