State Lawyers Agree With Valley VOTE on Disclosure

Groups like Valley VOTE, which is pushing for a study of secession of the San Fernando Valley, should not be required to identify those who contribute to its cause until the issue reaches the ballot, lawyers for a state panel said.

The recommendation Monday by two attorneys for the state Fair Political Practices Commission drew praise from Valley VOTE, but was attacked by Los Angeles ethics officials and City Councilman Mike Feuer.

The commission’s report, which suggested policy for any secession drive in California, is to be discussed at its meeting in Sacramento on Friday.

“We have a fundamental difference of opinion,” said Rebecca Avila, executive director of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission. “We don’t see this as any different from any other initiative.”

Avila said someone from her office will travel to Sacramento on Friday to urge the political practices panel to require disclosure of funds spent to trigger the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission’s study of secession through a petition drive and influence LAFCO’s placing the breakup measure on the ballot.

Secession “is a critical process,” Avila said. “It is consideration of whether the boundaries of a city should be changed.”

The report concludes that state law requiring disclosure of the identities of groups supporting or opposing ballot measures does not apply to groups pushing secession, which must demonstrate that secession is economically feasible before the radical deconstruction of the city can be put to a vote.

Any decision will be too late to require disclosure by Valley VOTE on what it spent to circulate petitions for the Valley petition study, said Richard Close, chairman of the group.

Close said the Fair Political Practices Commission memo has validated his group’s position that there was no disclosure required on its recent petition drive.

“We agree with the concept that initiatives of this kind are not covered,” Close said. “There are people who are concerned about retaliation and their choice would be not to contribute.”

Valley VOTE officials estimated in July that they had raised and spent $500,000 on the secession issue, including about $290,000 on the signature drive. Last year, Valley VOTE identified some of its donors, including the Daily News of Los Angeles, which had given $60,000.

The current rule “recognizes that payments made urging citizens to vote for or against a measure are the ones that have the most influence in the election process,” said the report to be considered Friday by the political practices commission.

In the report, FPPC attorneys Julia Bilaver and Luisa Menchaca said the panel might want to clarify which expenditures made before a secession initiative qualifies relate to promoting the initiative and therefore should be disclosed to the public.

Commission officials said Monday that the report is meant only to begin discussions on the issue, that the recommendations could change based on public discussion.

The commission’s lawyers said that now groups must disclose contributions and expenditures made by groups that circulate petitions to qualify most initiatives for the ballot, but said that process is different from a secession drive.

Under secession law, the petitions are not enough to put the breakup on the ballot, the report noted. There is an additional step requiring the Local Agency Formation Commission for the county to determine whether the secession would financially harm the new city or the remainder of the old city.

“Thus, the voters are not the only decision makers who determine whether or not a secession proposal reaches the ballot,” the report says. “As such, not all of the payments made to initiate and influence the LAFCO process are payments made to ‘influence the action of the voters for or against the qualification or passage of a measure.’ ”

Feuer called on the political practices panel to reject its staff recommendations and instead require full disclosure of the money spent on petition drives to trigger secession studies.

“There is a strong public interest in knowing who is funding a key public initiative,” Feuer said. “The public should know who has got an interest, who stands to gain, who stands to lose.”

At the same time, the commission staff recommended that the panel not change lobbying disclosure rules to cover LAFCO. The state’s rules requiring disclosure of lobbyist expenditures apply only to state agencies making statewide policy decisions, while LAFCO is making a local policy decision.

The attorneys said the political practices panel could support state legislation that would allow cities to regulate lobbying of LAFCO. Because LAFCO was created in Los Angeles County under state law, cities cannot impose their own disclosure rules on lobbying of the body, the attorneys said.

City ethics officials said they have asked the Fair Political Practices Commission only to support city efforts to get legislation that would allow the county’s LAFCO to adopt its own rules on disclosure of lobbyist expenditures.