Group Submits Initiative for Election Reform

A coalition that includes the group Common Cause submitted more than 700,000 signatures this week in hopes of qualifying a major campaign reform initiative for the November ballot.

The initiative, if approved by voters, would limit contributions to candidates for state and local offices, restrict spending by candidates, outlaw solicitation of donations from lobbyists, prohibit fund raising in nonelection years and ban the exchange of funds between candidates.

Significantly, it does not have a provision that has crippled past reform proposals: taxpayer financed campaigns.

The coalition, called Californians for Political Reform, filed the signatures with local elections officials Wednesday. Qualification requires at least 433,269 valid voter signatures.

“We’re going to be on the ballot,” said Ruth Holton, executive director of California Common Cause, a nonprofit political watchdog organization. The proposed California Political Reform Initiative would overhaul the existing system, which she charged “is corrupting Sacramento and local government across the state.”

Currently, there are no fund-raising or spending limits imposed on candidates for state office in primary and general elections. And fund raising continues its upward spiral.

During the last general election two years ago, a record $196 million was raised in statewide and legislative races. Holton said that if the proposed plan had been in effect at the time, the amount would have been cut in half.

Included in the coalition is Ross Perot’s United We Stand, the League of Women Voters, the American Assn. of Retired Persons and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.

Even as the coalition filed its signatures, a second activist group, Californians Against Political Corruption, announced that it also intends to place a similar but competing measure on the Nov. 5 ballot and has begun collecting signatures this week.

Mary Raftery, spokeswoman for the group, said its proposed initiative, dubbed the Anti-Corruption Act of 1996, would be tougher than the California Political Reform Initiative sponsored by the Common Cause coalition.

Raftery said her group’s proposal would “dig out the roots” of special interest influence in elections, something she said the coalition’s measure doesn’t address.

Holton labeled the competing proposal a “Trojan horse” designed to confuse voters and result in the defeat of both plans. Holton said--and Raftery confirmed--that the second measure was underwritten by a $100,000 pledge from the California Teachers Assn., a major contributor to Democrats.

“The CTA doesn’t want campaign finance reform nor does any other large political action committee contributor,” Holton said.

Raftery denied that her group’s plan was intended to confuse voters. “We’re encouraging people to vote for both,” she said.

California voters last faced competing political reform initiatives in 1988. The two plans, Propositions 68 and 73, were passed but neither took full effect because of reversals in the courts.

Under Holton’s plan, contributors would be limited to $250 for each legislative candidate per election; $500 to gubernatorial or other statewide candidates and $100 to local candidates.

Raftery’s plan proposes a limit per election of $100 to legislative and local candidates and $200 to statewide candidates. In the case of local and legislative candidates, 75% of their contributions must come from sources within the district.