Long Wait for Perfection

As a candidate, Mayor James K. Hahn bristled at the amount of money the Democratic Party spent campaigning for his opponent and fellow Democrat, Antonio Villaraigosa. But he took his anger out on the wrong target last week when he vetoed a campaign finance reform ordinance that would have given candidates speedier access to public matching funds.

In explaining his first veto, Hahn told the Los Angeles City Council that he wanted a comprehensive overhaul of the city’s campaign laws before he would approve a measure “increasing the amount of taxpayer dollars” to candidates. That was bunk. The ordinance didn’t call for an increase. And if every new officeholder insisted on starting from square one on campaign reform, it would never happen.

The ordinance sought to give the candidates access to more matching funds earlier in their campaigns, freeing them to talk issues more and fund-raise less. Under the current law, if a candidate participating in the city program receives a $500 individual donation, the city contributes another $500. The ordinance would have doubled the city’s match. But the total amount of funds available for matches would not increase.

Matching-fund programs aim to reduce the influence of large contributions from organized interests by making it worth a candidate’s time to seek small contributions from ordinary people. New York, for example, offers a 4-1 match for contributions of less than $250. The matching-funds program is also an attempt to hold campaign spending overall in check because, to receive the public money, candidates agree to city-set spending caps.

As Hahn knows well, powerful interests found ways around such laws in Los Angeles’ most recent mayoral and city attorney elections by independently supporting candidates without officially contributing to their campaigns.

A new statewide proposition further diluted the city’s efforts by allowing political parties, unions and other groups to “communicate” with their members about candidates without even reporting the source or amount of money spent until after the election.

The City Council passed an emergency measure requiring disclosure of member communications in time for the June runoff election. Today it will vote on extending the measure to cover a September special election to fill the late council President John Ferraro’s seat. It’s an incremental reform--state legislators are working on a bill to provide a permanent, statewide fix--but worth doing.

The voluntary spending cap and matching funds have helped keep spending on City Council races in check. The vetoed ordinance would have made the curbs stronger.

The new City Council has the chance to send the right message by overriding the mayor’s veto.