Spending Limit Erased in Runoff for Mayor

The spending limit in the hard-fought race for Los Angeles mayor was lifted Wednesday after a billboard company executive donated $250,000 in advertising space to James K. Hahn, setting the stage for a spending spree between now and the June 5 election.

The independent expenditure by the president of Regency Outdoor Advertising was large enough to lift the city’s $1.76-million limit on spending in the race between City Atty. Hahn and former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa.

That means the two campaigns are now free to spend whatever they can raise in the weeks leading up to the June 5 runoff. But they are still bound by the city’s $1,000 limit on political contributions to mayoral candidates.

Villaraigosa’s campaign consultant, Parke Skelton, said the former lawmaker will raise “whatever we can in $1,000 increments.”

Hahn and Villaraigosa agreed to accept the spending limit to receive public matching funds. But that cap is lifted when outside interests spend more than $200,000 to support or oppose a candidate.

Skelton said he had anticipated that the spending cap would be lifted but thought that would occur later in the race. “This is blowing it early enough to give us ample time to raise money in excess of the $1.76 million,” he said.

He predicted that ultimately Villaraigosa may raise at least $2.5 million for his final push to capture the mayor’s office. He spent at least $3.3 million in the months leading up to the April 10 election; Hahn spent more than $4.1 million.

“In a way it frees us up to have a little more substantial campaign,” Skelton said. “On the other hand, it frees Hahn up as well.”

Indeed, the city attorney can raise and spend more than the old limit. “We will go into a new phase in terms of our fund-raising,” said campaign spokesman Kam Kuwata.

Kuwata said Regency Outdoor’s donation of the billboard space “is not something we solicited. This is not something we coordinated.’

Brian Kennedy, chief executive and president of the billboard company, said the donation amounts to about 25 billboards. He said he made the donation because he thinks Hahn “would make a good mayor.”

The Villaraigosa campaign pounced on the donation as “a pretty good indication of who the billboard companies think is likely to protect their interest as mayor.”

Skelton said the encroachment of billboards into residential neighborhoods is an important issue on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley, where many votes that went to other candidates in the April 10 election are at stake.

Unwilling to be tagged as the billboard industry candidate, the Hahn campaign’s spokesman responded by saying that the city attorney has supported measures to restrict the advertising of alcohol and tobacco on billboards within 1,000 feet of schools.

Another billboard firm, Eller Media Co., donated $115,750 worth of advertising space to promote city attorney candidate Rocky Delgadillo before the April 10 election.

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