Davis Gets Campaign Funding Bill

Lauded by lawmakers and lambasted by government watchdogs, legislation to impose limited campaign finance restrictions in California cleared the Assembly on Thursday and awaits the signature of Gov. Gray Davis.

The Democrats who rule the Legislature billed their proposal, written without public input and rushed through both houses before the Capitol’s summer recess, as safe-bet campaign finance reforms that will survive a court challenge.

“Does it improve what we have on the books now? Yes,” said Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks). “Why? Because there is nothing on the books now.”

But groups that have traditionally pushed for limitations on political spending in California attacked it as an effort to supplant Proposition 208, the campaign reform law approved by voters in 1996, with weaker restrictions.

“Had they not superseded 208, it would have been better than nothing,” said Bob Stern, a campaign finance expert with the Center for Governmental Studies, a Los Angeles nonprofit organization. “But the fact that it does supersede 208 shows that their true intent is to thwart it. They are afraid of 208 and any meaningful campaign finance reform.”

Proposition 208, which has become entangled in legal fights and is not in effect, would cap contributions to legislative candidates at $250 and to gubernatorial contenders at $500.

By contrast, the Legislature’s latest proposal, by Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco), would cap contributions to legislative candidates at $3,000 and to gubernatorial candidates at $20,000.

It would also attempt to corral many of the shell games increasingly common in political campaigns by prohibiting large transfers of money from one candidate to another, restricting political action committee contributions to candidates, and limiting the sum that candidates can lend to their own campaigns.

If it is signed by Davis, as is widely expected on both sides of the debate, the proposal will still require voter approval in November. Although Davis has not publicly indicated his position on the proposal, it was written to specifically exempt him and other statewide candidates from its restrictions until Nov. 6, 2002--unlike candidates for the Senate and Assembly, who would be bound by the new rules starting in 2001.

Advocates of campaign finance reform, already angered by what they saw as an accelerated effort to undermine Proposition 208, became outraged Thursday on learning that top legislators had even strategically selected who would write the opposition arguments voters receive this fall.

Rather than choosing Proposition 208 backers--and allowing the debate to be framed around which attempt at campaign finance reform was better--Burton and Hertzberg selected two men who oppose all limits on fund-raising, Assemblyman Brett Granlund (R-Yucaipa) and state Sen. Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside.)

“I have to give them some credit though,” Stern joked. “This is the most efficient legislative action I have ever seen.”