Oxnard Mayor Asks for Limits on Campaign Contributions : Financing: Lopez hopes to eliminate the view that officials are beholden to special interests. He has no specific plan but wants the council to study the idea.

Saying he wants to erase the perception that developers can buy clout in Oxnard, Mayor Manuel Lopez is asking his fellow council members to consider limiting campaign contributions to candidates for public office.

Lopez, a 17-year council veteran, said he would like to do away with growing public mistrust in government and the view that public officials cater to special interests over the will of the people. He has requested that the council consider the matter on Tuesday.

He said he has no specific proposals to limit campaign contributions, but is asking his fellow council members to study the idea and review what other California cities have done.

“It seems like people would support you for who you are and not for who you are accessible to,” Lopez said. “I think what it would do is make people feel better about their public officials. There are a lot of negative feelings about government now.”

Councilman Tom Holden said he had no problems discussing campaign contribution limits in Oxnard. But he questioned Lopez’s motives for bringing the issue forward, accusing him of grandstanding.

“It’s interesting that the 1996 elections are coming up and the mayor is bringing this up,” Holden said. “There has been political posturing in the city for several years. Because you have a mayor that is elected every two years, the posturing never ends.”

Holden said campaign contributions are not likely to alter the results of elections, since votes, not dollars, determine who gets into office.

“You can’t run a campaign based on special interests alone,” Holden said. “You need the support of the people, and the person with the broadest base of support will always win.”

Lopez said that he does not care if some people question his motives. He said he is only doing what he believes is right.

“If I were going to be concerned about that I would not be in office,” Lopez said. “We’re all in office to do things we believe in and (we) think are right. I don’t see any reason why someone would be opposed to what I am doing.”

Council members Andres Herrera, Bedford Pinkard and Dean Maulhardt did not return phone calls Thursday.

Oxnard currently has no ordinance limiting campaign contributions, said Assistant City Clerk Linda Lawrence, who oversees the city’s elections. Only in special elections does state law limit the amount of money candidates can receive, Lawrence said.

Campaign finance reform, a hot issue throughout the nation at all levels of government, has recently surfaced in several Ventura County cities.

In Ventura, Councilman Steve Bennett proposed a campaign contribution ordinance last year that would limit donations to $100 per donor or $20,000 overall. Candidates who agreed to spend $2,000 or less could accept donations of up to $200.

After much debate, the Ventura City Council eventually opted to place the issue before the city’s voters in November.

In Thousand Oaks, a proposal earlier this year by Councilwoman Elois Zeanah to discuss campaign finance reform in city elections was flatly rejected by two of her colleagues.

Ventura’s 1993 council race was the costliest in city history, with candidates and political action groups spending more than $220,000. Thousand Oaks candidates collectively spent more than $213,000 in last year’s elections.

By contrast, candidates in Oxnard’s 1994 City Council race spent about $100,000 campaigning for office.

Lopez said he got the idea for campaign finance reform from California Common Cause, a citizens’ watchdog group that tracks public spending and helped Ventura draft its initiative.

“I feel we need to discuss it,” Lopez said. “From what (Common Cause) tells me, there are a lot of cities that have campaign reform ordinances in California.”