After All the Political Reforms, Guess Who’s Still Standing

These days, politics in California is a lot like driving in Boston. There is only one rule: There are no rules. While the courts decide the fate of three political-reform initiatives, California’s election process remains a crapshoot.

Legislative term limits, approved by voters in 1990, were overturned last April by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken; Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren has appealed, and the federal Court of Appeals has indicated it will rule on the appeal before next year’s elections. Legislators scheduled to walk the term-limit plank next year can do little more than squirm.

Proposition 198, passed last March, established an “open primary” in which all candidates of every political party appear on a single ballot for each race; Californians, regardless of party registration, can vote for any candidate. The top vote getter from each party goes on the general-election ballot. Both the Democratic and Republican Parties have challenged 198, and the case is scheduled for trial later this month.

Proposition 208, passed last November, places draconian limits on campaign contributions and encourages candidates to adopt voluntary expenditure ceilings. Five suits have been filed against it; complainants, including both major parties, an anti-abortion group and a labor union, contend the law violates the 1st and 14th Amendments. A consolidated suit is scheduled for trial in October.

All three initiatives were touted as a means to make politics and government more responsive to voters, end the pernicious role of political money and curb the influence of interest groups in government. But the synergy of these reforms suggests that no matter which proposals survive court scrutiny, big-money interests will still maintain their clout.

If 140 is struck down or term limits are allowed to stand without a lifetime ban, big contributors, like the tobacco industry, unions, big business, and trial attorneys, can draw on their past investments in incumbents who suddenly find themselves with a new lease on political life.

If 208’s low contribution limits stand, they will put a premium on support from well-organized, large-membership organizations, like the California Medical Assn., AFL-CIO, the California Teachers’ Assn., the California Realtors Assn. and environmental groups, that can provide candidates with easy access to long lists of potential donors.

Because 208 restricts lobbyists’ contributions and mandates a limited window for raising campaign funds (it opens six months before the primary for legislative candidates), the frenzied pace of legislators, rushing between fund-raisers with lobbyists and the Capitol to vote on issues dear to those lobbyists’ hearts, has slowed. There can be no major fund-raising during this summer’s legislative crunch. “Have we reduced special-interest influence dramatically?” Bob Stern, one of 208’s authors, mused. “Not yet. But the perception is changing, and that is important.”

True, but this ignores the impact interests can have on the legislative process outside the glare of the campaign spotlight. A report by the office of the secretary of state indicates “lobbying expenditures”--money spent by groups, companies and individuals to attempt to influence legislative and administrative actions--rose over the past four legislative sessions, from nearly $194 million (1989-90) to roughly $267 million (1995-96). None of the campaign reforms will stop that.

Nor are contributions to ballot-proposition campaigns regulated by 208. What’s to prevent interests from using the threat of initiatives to prod the Legislature into action--or in a specific direction--on major policy issues? Or what’s to preclude them from qualifying initiatives designed to benefit favored candidates on the same election ballot?

“Independent expenditure committees” also remain virtually unregulated. These committees can fund a campaign either to boost a candidate or trash his or her opponents, as long as there is no communication with the candidate’s operation. Done right--and political consultants are flocking to this gravy train--this largess can be a small boon for little-known, cash-strapped politicians, particularly in a crowded and confusing open primary.

Open-primary supporters say we’ll see more moderate nominees with broad-based support, because cross-party voting will increase participation and release the stranglehold of ideological extremes on both major parties. But caps on candidate contributions and expenditures, coupled with targeted “independent” campaigns that turn out party activists, could just as easily produce extremist nominees.

These days, control of the Legislature increasingly depends on winning a handful of marginal, swing districts. Interest groups have always been important in these competitive races; that’s where their money and organization really talk. Independent-expenditure campaigns can have a similar impact, particularly if term limits, which create frequent turnover, are upheld.

All this has spawned the “political investment counselor,” a kind of sherpa whose role it is to guide committees through the political and regulatory thicket of post-reform California and to advise contributors on how and where to get the most electoral bang for their bucks.

Before Proposition 208 banned transfers of funds, legislative leaders raised money from lobbyists and interest groups to pour into competitive races. Now, political parties look to fill that vacuum. Under 208, they can accept up to $5,000 a year from any contributor. They are not restricted, as candidates are, to limited fund-raising periods, and they can give candidates up to 25% of the campaign’s voluntary spending caps. This increased potential for raising political money could help strengthen California’s anemic parties. It also could allow legislators, lobbyists and interest groups to use them as indirect conduits of aid to candidates.

For every attempt at reform, the bottom line is always the same: The road to hell is paved, and has been repaved time and time again, with good intentions. The goal of 208, states the law, is “to reduce the influence of large contributors with a specific financial stake in matters before government by severing the link between lobbying and campaign fund-raising.” The danger is, it may only succeed in obscuring the link between money and policy. And that could make already cynical Californians even more estranged from their government and the political system that defines it.