Less Competitive Elections in L.A.?

The combination of term limits and partial public financing may be creating a very peculiar situation in Los Angeles, one not anticipated when the city’s ethics law passed in 1990. Term limits will create many open seats but the city’s campaign contribution limits may be too restrictive to allow for healthy competition among candidates.

Under the city’s ethics code, each candidate for citywide office can receive $1,000 from a contributor for each election cycle (the primary and general are counted separately), and each City Council candidate can receive $500. The most a single contributor can give during an election cycle is $7,000 (three citywide offices plus eight council seats). But term limits have changed the dynamics of the cycle.

Before term limits, there were few open seats in an average city election. Occasionally, an incumbent was beaten, but there weren’t that many candidates running for that many offices. Today, winners are pretty much guaranteed a free ride in their reelection runs, making fund-raising a minor factor. But money becomes a major factor when open seats multiply and there are many candidates running for many offices.

In the 2001 city elections, there will be 11 open seats. The problem is, the city’s contribution limits may make it more difficult than ever before for any but early front-runners to be heard. More than 90% of the donors to city elections--business, labor and the occasional politically active citizen--do business with the city. Once these traditional sources are tapped out, it’s not easy to raise money, unless there is an overriding ethnic or single issue at stake, or unless a candidate can self-finance a campaign. Normally, donors give to those they think will win, and often they will give to more than one in a single race if they want to “cover their bets.”

The $7,000 aggregate limit was not premised on every seat being open. Potential contributors in the coming city elections will be in danger of maxing out relatively early in the game if they give to one candidate in every race now, nearly a year before the primary. Late entrants, men and women only thinking about running, will have a much harder time raising funds to run a credible campaign.

There is another restraint in the law that doesn’t quite fit with the current system: the time frame for raising money. Under the 1990 code, council candidates can begin raising money from individuals 18 months before the election, and those seeking citywide office can start 24 months prior to the voting. The reasoning undergirding these restrictions was that incumbents raise money from one election to another, while challengers don’t usually think of running until much later in the day. The time frame restrained incumbents, giving challengers a bit of a step up.

Rather than challenge an incumbent, office seekers may decide to wait until the seat is open to improve their chances. Potential candidates may spend years planning their campaigns, thinking about political goals and lining up supporters, much as the current crop of mayoral candidates has done. Because these challengers are behaving as if they are incumbents, what is the point of limiting their fund-raising to a year before the race?

Ideally, an informed voter wants to know who the candidates are, what and whom they represent and what they propose to do if elected. More often than not, however, voters don’t know much about candidates and tend to make up their minds based on considerations like party identity, ethnicity, gender or name recognition. They also learn a lot of negative stuff about candidates and, occasionally, are misled by the consequences of campaign promises.

It takes both money and time to sort out the truth, although money, certainly, can also obscure it. The point is, democracy is not served by less communication. Even though Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens recently noted that money is not “speech” but “property,” in a welcomed critical comment in a campaign-finance-reform case, money is critical to communication. The more candidates tell us about themselves and their goals, the easier to judge them.

In its role as the city’s election watchdog, the Ethics Commission should study the consequences of the two-term limit. While the limit creates open seats every eight years, there is almost no accountability during that period. Mayor Richard Riordan, for example, keeps saying he will be held accountable if the Los Angeles Police Department fails. How, since he can’t run for mayor again? If the limit isn’t extended, then it may be wise to raise the aggregate contribution cap to maximize the possibility of knowing more about all the candidates, not just the early front-runners. Perhaps, the period of fund-raising should be lengthened so potential candidates can test the electoral waters realistically. *