Huge Campaign Loophole

The law should mean what it says. But that’s not the case with Proposition 34, the campaign fund-raising “reform” approved by state voters in November 2000.

Californians were promised that the measure, written by Democratic leaders, would impose a $3,000 limit on individual contributions to legislative campaigns. But The Times’ Virginia Ellis and Carl Ingram have disclosed that the state Fair Political Practices Commission tore a gaping loophole in the law last September. Since then, Democratic leaders have been driving cash-laden trucks through that gap--Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City) to the tune of $1.6 million and Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco), $532,000.

As it implemented Proposition 34, the commission held that the new contribution limits did not apply to campaign committees formed before the law became effective Jan. 1, 2001. Commission Chairwoman Karen Getman said, “While it’s wonderful to talk about the philosophy of contribution limits, we’ve got to make the law work.”

That is the commission’s job. But its responsibility should be to make the law work the way the voters intended, not how legislators might want, although both Wesson and Burton said they did not seek the ruling.

Getman should explain why the new law applies to contributors and candidates in most cases but not to committees. It’s one thing to exempt money a committee already has raised, but it’s quite another to allow committees to keep raking in unlimited cash under the old rules. The commission did establish dates for the committees to comply, but some of those deadlines are more than two years away. The cutoff of unlimited amounts of cash should be immediate. What the commission is allowing now is nothing short of a violation of the public trust.

It’s ironic that loopholes continue to riddle state campaign finance laws, including allowing the use of large “soft money” contributions, just when Congress has finally passed a strong campaign law.

The 1974 state Political Reform Act, which created the Fair Political Practices Commission, required a broad interpretation of its provisions to carry out voters’ intent, but now the commission imposes a narrow ruling that helps the pols. So a member of Congress can collect only $1,000 from a single contributor but a committee of the state Assembly speaker or Senate president can collect unlimited amounts. The commission should close this loophole, and if it will not, the Legislature must.