Court OKs Candidate Statements in Voter Packet

Local candidates can include their political views in their statement of qualifications in the voter pamphlet, as long as they don’t attack their opponents, a state appeals court ruled Thursday in a case involving Irvine city government.

Overturning a judge’s ruling, the 4th District Court of Appeal said the “qualifications” allowed in the 200-word statement aren’t limited to a candidate’s background.

“For many voters, it is far more important to know whether you will raise taxes or increase regulations than it is to know what school you went to or what Little League teams you coached,” Presiding Justice David Sills said in the 3-0 ruling.

State law allows candidates for local office to include statements of their qualifications in the pamphlet mailed to each registered voter. The state Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that candidates for judge could not include personal attacks in their statements, a ban that the appeals court extended to other local candidates last year.

Sills acknowledged that the line between one’s own views and attacks on one’s opponents can sometimes be hard to draw, as in statements that the candidate was the only one in the race to take a certain position. But he said the current case, from the city of Irvine, posed no such difficulty.

Former Mayor Larry Agran, in his successful campaign for City Council last year, submitted a ballot pamphlet statement that called for the defeat of Orange County’s plan for an airport at El Toro.

In a suit by a political opponent of Agran’s, Superior Court Judge John Wooley ordered all references to Agran’s views removed from the statement, saying they were not “qualifications.” Agran complied, substituting language that referred to his membership on an anti-airport committee, but continued his appeal after he won the election.

The appeals court said Agran’s statement should have been left intact.