Lax Campaign Rules Make State a School for Scandal

State Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush is the latest Sacramento politician to stumble into scandal. Given human nature, he certainly won’t be the last. Clearly, the public should help these wayward wretches by removing their temptations.

That means real campaign finance reform--including contribution and spending limits, bans on money transfers from one politician to another and public financing. But the political class collectively fights all this, because it would reduce the money flowing into a lucrative system that works extremely well for special interests, paid consultants and the pampered pols.

To be charitable, Quackenbush seems like another good guy trapped in a bad system. He’s personable and sounds reasonable, the kind of Republican that Democrats easily can tolerate--a moderate who favors abortion rights and, as a Silicon Valley assemblyman, cast the deciding vote to ban assault weapons.

His recent judgment, however, is at least suspect. I’d say flawed and unfathomable.

Keep in mind that Quackenbush’s sole public duty is to regulate the insurance industry and serve as the consumers’ protector. But this commissioner hits up the industry he regulates for the money that sustains his political activities. Insurance donations bankrolled his 1994 election and 1998 reelection. And even though he is barred by term limits from running again, he keeps on tapping the industry for money, accepting donations from firms as they’re being regulated.

He’s preserving his options to run for another office, Quackenbush told Times reporters. “I don’t know of any politician out there who doesn’t have an ongoing political operation.”

They all do it.

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In summary, this is what Quackenbush did:

* Transferred $175,000 from his political kitty to his wife, Chris, so she could pay off her campaign debt. She had mortgaged the couple’s house in 1998 to help finance her unsuccessful race for the state Senate. Insurance money now has paid off the mortgage.

“I wouldn’t have done this if I thought there was anything illegal about it,” Quackenbush says. “I have the ability to help her out. And she’s my wife.”

Legal, perhaps, but odorous. These political donations weren’t helping Chuck Quackenbush run for office; they were paying off a mortgage.

* Settled with six big insurance companies for relative peanuts after his own investigators found that at least three had mishandled hundreds of claims following the 1994 Northridge earthquake. His staff proposed seeking billions in fines and payments to quake victims. Instead, Quackenbush let the insurers off the hook with $12 million for creation of an earthquake research and assistance foundation.

Trying to assess these companies billions would have required years of litigation, Quackenbush explains. “These were good settlements for the consumers. This was the best deal we could get.”

It’s a horrible admission--that this was his best effort.

And this is how the foundation has spent the money:

* Given $500,000 to the Sacramento Urban League. Quackenbush is an Urban League board member.

The commissioner contends he knew nothing about the donation; it was the foundation’s decision. But he should have known. This was earthquake money generated by him. If it must go to an Urban League, find one around Northridge.

If he could do it over, Quackenbush acknowledges, he’d put tighter restrictions on the foundation.

* Run $3 million in TV ads that featured Quackenbush urging people to prepare for quakes. The spots looked self-promotional, but may have served a useful purpose. Give him a pass.

So far, no quake victim has seen any of the $12 million.

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At times like this, I think of the late Jesse Unruh, legendary Assembly speaker and state treasurer. His quote--”money is the mother’s milk of politics”--is one of the most famous in political history. Much less known is that he ultimately concluded “the milk has soured . . . turned to clabber.”

Unruh wound up advocating 100% public financing of campaigns with realistic spending limits. Only then, he reasoned, would politicians not feel beholden to big donors.

Unruh also admonished young legislators about lobbyists: “If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, [love] their women and then vote against them, you have no business being up here.”

That may have been tempting human nature too much. Regardless--food, booze and sex aren’t the temptations today. It’s the seductive sour milk that sustains political careers--and might even pay off a mortgage.