Frenzy of Campaign Fund-Raising Begins

SACRAMENTO — A ban on fund-raising by state legislative candidates has expired, and the feeding frenzy for campaign dollars has begun--in much smaller bites than in past years.

“The bell has rung,” said Jim Knox, executive director of California Common Cause. His group was a sponsor of last year’s voter-approved Proposition 208, which prohibits campaign fund-raising during nonelection years.

For the past 11 months, candidates for the Assembly and Senate have been barred from raising money for the 1998 election campaign. The hiatus ended Tuesday.

“I’m encouraging all of my Republican caucus members and candidates to get out there and start asking for money,” Assembly GOP leader Bill Leonard said Wednesday.

Several incumbent lawmakers already have scheduled holiday fund-raising events, including dinners, receptions and a birthday party.

The ban was just one component of the complex initiative to reform campaign financing. Proposition 208 also imposed other far-reaching changes, including restrictions on contributions.

Legislative candidates, for example, generally cannot take more than $250 from individual donors, business and labor organizations and political action committees. Candidates for statewide offices, such as governor, are limited to $500 per donor.

If a candidate agrees to limit campaign spending, those contribution limits can double.

Richard Ross, a veteran political consultant, has estimated that it typically costs $700,000 to run an effective Assembly campaign.

“We are certainly going to see the onset of fund-raising [with the ban now expired], but it will be in much smaller increments,” said Knox. “It is going to be in $250, $500 and $1,000 increments as opposed to the $5,000, $10,000 and $50,000 [increments] that have not been uncommon in the past.”

California GOP chairman Mike Schroeder expressed doubt that the limits will reduce overall contributions. “I don’t think you are going to see any less money raised, you are just going to see it raised in a shorter period of time,” he said.

Leonard and others complained of widespread confusion among donors.

Leonard said, for example, that longtime contributors are uncertain whether they can give to both a candidate and the candidate’s party (they can).

And he said candidates must now spend huge amounts of time on the telephone calling contributors, in lieu of personal campaign appearances or working at their regular jobs.

“I think it is going to take more work and more effort to raise less money,” he said. Leonard also said he is advising candidates to agree to the voluntary spending limits, because not to do so could look bad to voters.

Senate leader Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) said Proposition 208, which carries criminal penalties for violators, is so complex that “we now have to hire lawyers and accountants and experts to manage the filings [on money raised] and other legal requirements. We are spending money on this overhead rather than campaigning.”

There are pending court challenges to three voter-approved initiatives, including Proposition 208. The others involve term limits and the open-primary system.

“We don’t know whether we can run for what office,” Lockyer said. “We don’t know who can contribute to [a] candidate and we are not certain who can vote for the different candidates. That is a considerable amount of uncertainty.”

Common Cause’s Knox said one positive result of the nonelection year fund-raising ban was the absence of traditional fund-raising events during the hectic final week of the legislative session.

That is when lobbyists typically were flooded by invitations to contribute at the same time the biggest bills of the year were up for final action.

“That blatant conflict of interest was absent this year, and it made for a much more productive atmosphere,” Knox said. “They could really concentrate on legislation.”