Ethics Panel Plan Meets Resistance by Officials

A proposal to limit the effect of independent expenditures in Los Angeles elections has bogged down at City Hall, where Mayor James K. Hahn and other officials who benefited from the practice have raised objections.

Hahn and City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo were both elected two years ago with the help of independent expenditures, defined as money spent -- legally in unlimited amounts -- by companies and other entities without coordination with a candidate.

Delgadillo’s office is among those expressing legal and fairness concerns about a plan to regulate such spending, creating uncertainty about whether new rules will be adopted in time to apply to the 2005 citywide election.

Delgadillo said he avoided a conflict by having other attorneys in his office do the legal analysis that found much of the proposal unconstitutional. Still, the city Ethics Commission is so concerned about the role of his office that on Tuesday members began exploring whether the panel can use outside counsel when it believes the city attorney would have a conflict in serving as the commission’s legal advisor.

“I just think it puts our commission and the city attorney, who is part of the community affected by this [reform proposal], in an awkward position,” said commission President Miriam Krinsky.

But Hahn sent a letter to the City Council on Tuesday warning that he would veto any ordinance that fails to get the city attorney’s approval.

“The city attorney letter, whether one agrees or disagrees with its analysis, has the effect of creating a cloud over these measures and causing uncertainty in upcoming elections as to whether the ordinance will withstand legal scrutiny,” Hahn wrote.

The issue was raised as part of a debate over a package of more than 60 recommendations by the Ethics Commission last year to address the influence of independent expenditures by special interests. The proposals are scheduled for another hearing today by the council’s Rules and Elections Committee.

Currently, candidates for mayor and city attorney can receive no more than $1,000 from each supporter, with those contributions matched by the city if the candidates agree to abide by spending limits.

However, companies and unions can legally spend an unlimited amount on their own to support a candidate as long as they do not coordinate their efforts with the candidate.

Such independent campaigns have spent more than $232,000 so far to influence the March 4 election, in which seven City Council seats will be on the ballot.

In the 2001 election, billboard companies, Indian gaming interests, political parties and unions independently spent a record $3.2 million on campaigns, four times more than was spent in the entire decade leading up to that election. That amount included $768,000 to support Delgadillo, most of it from billboard companies.

To counter that advantage, the Ethics Commission proposed nearly a year ago that in some races with large independent expenditures the spending cap should be lifted for all candidates except those who benefited from the outside campaigns. In addition, the candidates who did not benefit from the independent expenditures in such races would receive matching funds at a rate of $3 for each $1 raised rather than the normal dollar-for-dollar match.

Contribution limits would also be raised for candidates whose opponents benefit from a significant independent expenditure campaign.

The commission further proposed prohibiting corporations and unions from making independent expenditures from their treasuries. Instead, they would be required to form political action committees, which would have to disclose the source of the funds.

Delgadillo’s office issued a legal opinion saying the proposed ethics rules that would benefit only some candidates and also prohibit non-PAC expenditures are unconstitutional because they infringe on the 1st Amendment rights of those involved.

Council President Alex Padilla, the Rules and Elections Committee chairman, said recently that the city attorney’s report “raised serious constitutional concerns” that had to be addressed before he would move the ethics reforms out of committee.

LeeAnn Pelham, executive director of the Ethics Commission, said she planned to report back in April on the potential use of outside attorneys by the panel.