Special Interest Money Talks

A 2-year-old state law limiting the money that donors can give to most California politicians has not stopped special interest groups, which are spending millions of dollars on behalf of their favored candidates in this year’s state legislative races.

The result is that some voters are receiving expensive, last-minute mailers from groups without an obvious interest in the race at hand. Dentists, doctors, unions, trial lawyers, tobacco companies, mobile home owners and many others have entered the fray by forming so-called independent expenditure committees.

The groups are spending more than candidates in some races.

“It is completely dysfunctional,” Democratic consultant Richie Ross said. “The candidate’s voice is being drowned out by well-intentioned groups. Voters get mail and don’t know who’s behind it.”

In the first state election governed by the contribution limits of Proposition 34, interest groups are legally evading the caps approved by California voters and mimicking a much-criticized practice in federal campaigns--one that Congress is trying to overhaul.

Ron Calderon’s battle for the Democratic nomination in an Assembly district east of Los Angeles, for example, is not merely with Chuck Fuentes. A group calling itself California Alliance, financed by trial lawyers, a nurses union and an environmentalist group, has spent nearly $100,000 on Fuentes’ campaign.

By Tuesday’s election, the newly created committee will have spent about $600,000 on five races.

Likewise, north of Los Angeles, two unions led by state prison guards have spent $220,000 on behalf of Sharon Runner, wife of a retiring assemblyman, in harsh attacks against her Republican-primary opponent, Assemblyman Phil Wyman of Tehachapi.

In a Sacramento-area Assembly race, optometrists have spent $70,000 against ophthalmologist Alan Nakanishi.

And north of Sacramento, in a race between two Assembly Republicans competing for a state Senate seat, dentists are using independent expenditures to help Sam Aanestad while state employees are spending on behalf of Dick Dickerson. Combined, the committees have spent a reported $704,000.

Gale Kaufman, a campaign consultant now coordinating the independent expenditures of teachers, state employees and others, says her clients are spending heavily “because of the stakes in some of the races, the ideological issues.”

David Allgood of the California League of Conservation Voters, which has used independent expenditures, also defended the practice.

“We didn’t feel as if we could sit outside the fray,” he said. “We felt we had to be players.”

Under California’s old anything-goes system, donors could give an unlimited amount to candidates. Checks of $100,000 made out to Assembly and Senate candidates were not unusual.

Proposition 34 caps individuals’ donations to legislative candidates at $3,000, though some groups, such as labor unions, can give $6,000. In 2006, candidates for statewide offices will fall under Proposition 34’s contribution limits, raising the likelihood that independent committees will help shape the race for governor.

1st Amendment Right Was Upheld

A few groups have run independent campaigns in state races, and Indian tribes used them in last year’s race for mayor on behalf of James K. Hahn and against Antonio Villaraigosa. But the 2002 primary is the first election in which such efforts are being used extensively in Assembly and Senate races.

Independent expenditures have their defenders. Some say they insulate candidates from being influenced by having to solicit campaign donations directly.

Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that although caps can be placed on donations to candidates, individuals and groups have a 1st Amendment right to spend as much as they want on independent political efforts.

“I don’t think there is anything you can do with independent expenditures,” said Lance Olson, a political law expert who helped draft Proposition 34 and advises about a dozen such groups set up for this year’s election.

Critics say independent spending allows groups to circumvent contribution limits. James Knox, executive director of California Common Cause, which opposed Proposition 34, said the groups can level harsh, sometimes inaccurate, allegations, leaving the targeted candidate with little recourse.

“There is no question that independent expenditure committees are less accountable,” Knox said. “Frankly, sometimes candidates like it that way.”

As money shifts away from candidates, state parties are becoming richer recipients of campaign cash. The California Democratic Party reported having $11.3 million in ready cash as of Feb. 16--six times the $1.6 million it had in February 2000, before Proposition 34’s passage. The California Republican Party had $2 million as of Feb. 16, twice what it had two years before.

For the most part, parties don’t get involved in primaries. Independent expenditure committees, however, have no such compunctions.

With most legislative districts heavily favoring either Democrats or Republicans, the collective view of the next Legislature probably will be determined by this year’s primary battles, and interest groups are trying to seize an opportunity.

On the Republican side, some groups are trying to elect moderates to revive a party that has been losing ground in California, largely because voters view it as too conservative on social issues. Business groups also are playing in Democratic primaries, on the side of fiscal moderates.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys and organized labor, increasingly angry at moderate Assembly Democrats for casting pro-business votes on major legislation, are trying to elect lawmakers who share their more liberal, pro-consumer bent.

“You have a cancer that has developed in the Legislature,” said attorney Ray Boucher, who oversees spending by Consumer Attorneys of California, the trial lawyer organization. “They call themselves the moderate Democratic caucus. They are really the corporate business caucus, and they have hijacked the Democratic party and the Assembly process.”

Boucher, a partner in the Beverly Hills firm of Kiesel, Boucher & Larson, estimates that plaintiffs’ lawyers will have spent $2.5 million on legislative races by Tuesday.

Heading into the final weekend before the election, voters will be inundated with mailers and other ads attacking candidates, financed by groups with benign-sounding names such as Californians for Common Sense, funded by alcohol, oil, construction and energy interests, and Californians United, which gets money from labor, energy, tobacco and E&J; Gallo Winery.

“There are some more surprises this weekend,” Boucher said.

In the Calderon-Fuentes race, California Alliance is sending mailers lashing out at Calderon for taking money from tobacco and oil companies. One mailer raises questions about his commitment to public education, though he has been endorsed by teachers unions.

A committee funded by California Chamber of Commerce members, including energy, oil and insurance companies, is spending on Calderon’s behalf.

Prison Guards Unions Are Spending a Lot

Trial lawyers and environmentalists are not the only ones aiming to settle old scores. The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. is spending in the high six figures, hoping to influence the outcome of a half-dozen races.

North of Los Angeles, two unions led by the state prison guards union have spent $220,000 on behalf of Sharon Runner, wife of outgoing Assemblyman George Runner Jr. (R-Lancaster), in her campaign against Phil Wyman. A loser in last year’s redistricting, Wyman moved into the neighboring district in an effort to extend his tenure.

The unions have sent mailers attacking Wyman as “a career politician who spent nearly 20 years in the Legislature and is now desperate to return.” The mailers seek to make an issue of Wyman’s taking tax-free per diem payments of $121 for each day the Legislature is in session. Of course, virtually all state lawmakers accept the payments. Guards also tried to link Wyman with Willie Brown, even though the San Francisco mayor has been out of the Legislature for seven years.

Wyman believes the prison guards targeted him because he opposed legislation restricting the state from contracting with private prison companies. A private prison firm is helping to finance mailers on Wyman’s behalf.

The guards union opposes private prisons, some of which are in the Antelope Valley. Wyman has raised about $300,000 for his campaign. But though he intends to spend it all to win the seat, Wyman said the heavy spending by state employee unions makes his chances “dicey.”

“It’s a dangerous precedent for campaigns to have caps, then to have independent expenditure committees bust those caps by hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Wyman said.

The guards union is using Wyman to send a message that legislators shouldn’t “mess” with them, Wyman said. “If they’re able to take me out, that doesn’t bode well for the independence of the Legislature.”

“Our troops don’t like him, and I support our troops,” said Don Novey, president of the prison officers union. Of independent expenditures, Novey said: “It’s something that isn’t going to go away. . . . It is constitutionally in cement.”

The rise in independent expenditure committees is spawning a niche industry for campaign consultants. Gale Kaufman, a longtime Democratic campaign consultant, said she normally would have an operative working at the candidate’s headquarters and would be in constant contact. Not this year.

Instead, she is overseeing a committee formed by teachers and state employee unions that will spend as much as $400,000 on behalf of Democrats in primary fights. She also is representing a business group that is spending heavily on behalf of a Democrat in the Silicon Valley, and Democrat Andre Cherney in the San Fernando Valley. The use of independent expenditure committees could result in more money being spent on state campaigns because of duplication of polling and other efforts, Kaufman said.

“I’m still very involved in legislative races, but I’m working without candidates,” he said. “I’m doing it on behalf of interests.”

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Proposition 34 has strict disclosure requirements. Groups must report donations to the secretary of state within 24 hours. To look up a donor on the Internet, go to: https://www.ss.ca.gov.