Laws for Sale

Californians love the initiative process, a variation on lawmaking conceived by progressives in the early 1900s to empower ordinary voters to right the wrongs of big special interests in the halls of government. That’s still true for the rare populist issue on California ballots. But the initiative has become the tool of well-heeled special interests seeking to bypass the legislative process with tricky ballot propositions and obscene amounts of money. That never has been clearer than in this election campaign.

Spending to promote Nov. 3 ballot propositions is expected to surpass $200 million. Most of the money goes into television ads that are misleading at best and often just plain deceptive.

Californians have voted several times--yes, through the initiative process--to put reasonable limits on campaign contributions and spending. Those efforts have been struck down by the courts as inhibiting the constitutional right of free speech. This year, free speech is on a spending spree with no limits on any campaign contribution. It’s a sorry spectacle.

Of the 12 ballot issues, the bulk of funding is going into five campaigns. They involve American Indian gambling, air quality tax credits, Gov. Pete Wilson’s education plan, electric utility deregulation and a tobacco tax to finance programs to aid children.

Common Cause reports that contributions through Oct. 17 totaled $170 million. Of that, $165 million was contributed to support or defeat these five issues. Astoundingly, 98.6% of all these contributions came in amounts of $10,000 or more. So far, $86 million has been raised for and against Proposition 5, the Indian gambling measure.

The $60 million contributed on behalf of Proposition 5 came from tribes seeking to maintain Nevada-style slot machines, led by $27 million from the San Manuel tribe of Highland, near San Bernardino. Virtually all of the $26 million in opposition came from Nevada casinos, led by $8 million from Mirage Resorts Inc. of Las Vegas. Why Nevada? Its big casinos do not want to lose their California customers to the Indian casinos.

Other massive contributions for measures in Tuesday’s election included $14 million by Philip Morris Inc. to defeat Proposition 10, which would levy a new 50-cent-per-pack tobacco tax to fund children’s programs; $6 million from the California Teachers’ Assn. to defeat Proposition 8, Wilson’s education initiative, and $17 million each from Edison International and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. of San Francisco to defeat Proposition 9, which would roll back the recently enacted state utility deregulation. Jackpots like this go a long way toward getting a message out, truthful or otherwise. This is electoral brainwashing.

The next best thing to limits on campaign contributions would be full disclosure of the sources of campaign money. This week, all seven candidates for secretary of state joined Common Cause and the League of Women Voters in calling on television stations to identify the top contributors to each campaign whenever its ads run. Most stations have declined; they do not want to scare off these lucrative sources of dough.

For now, it’s voter beware. And after this election, sensible and politically courageous Californians will have to try again to find a way to curb this level of initiative excess.