Over the Top in Anaheim

It’s one thing to have a special prosecutor investigate Watergate or Whitewater, Iran-Contra or the White House travel office. But political contributions in Anaheim? That’s way over the top.

Anaheim is the first and only city in California to have a special prosecutor of its very own. All other cities and counties have gotten by just fine with a city attorney or district attorney to look into violations of civil or criminal codes.

Anaheim’s special prosecutor, Ravi Mehta, was hired by two of the five City Council members. One council member opposed the hiring and two, including the mayor, Tom Daly, abstained.

Mehta investigated the 1996 city election and determined that violations took place. He also set the fines. One council member paid, saying she could not afford an attorney to fight Mehta in court. When Daly and former Councilman Irv Pickler did not settle, Mehta leveled criminal charges against them last month.

Normally, the government watchdogs who help serve democracy by insisting on enforcement of campaign contribution laws would be applauding Mehta. But this time they recognize that the charges are minor and the case has political overtones.

The levying of criminal charges also could discourage others from seeking public office lest they too be pilloried for honest mistakes. After all, in most past cases, notices of a trivial violation of the law such as omitting a contributor’s occupation are remedied by filing an amended document. Not this time. Not in Anaheim.

Before Mehta’s appointment, the city attorney filed charges against a political action committee that allegedly received larger contributions than allowed by city law and reported them months after the election. Mehta filed criminal charges against former Councilman Frank Feldhaus and a political action committee that filed campaign contribution reports only one day late.

Daly says he plans to run for county supervisor. A likely opponent is an Anaheim council member who voted to hire Mehta. The city attorney saw no reason to prosecute Pickler or Daly. If that was not good enough, the district attorney could have investigated. There was no need to bring in Mehta, who at last count had cost the city more than $79,000 in fees and more than $4,000 in expenses.

Mehta has said he is simply enforcing the law. That’s a change from his performance as head of the state Fair Political Practices Commission. In that job he boasted to lobbyists that he had become known as the “eviscerator” of the voter-approved campaign finance law, Proposition 208.

Mehta would have done better to live up to his job defending Proposition 208 against court attacks. Anaheim officials would have done better to let the existing legal mechanisms decide if any charges were needed.