Ethics Panel Urges More Reforms

Despite recent reforms of Los Angeles’ political finance laws, members of the city’s Ethics Commission said Saturday there is more to be done to address concerns that city commissioners wield extraordinary power and special interests flood city races with unregulated dollars.

Ideas floated by ethics officials included setting term limits for city commissioners, banning the panelists from also serving as lobbyists, and providing additional public matching funds to candidates to blunt the impact of independent campaigns by special interests.

The discussion came during a special meeting at the Skirball Cultural Center to address the commission’s role in enforcing ethics laws at a time when local and federal grand juries are investigating contracting practices at three city departments.

Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley has said his office is trying to determine if the awarding of contracts by city commissioners and others is linked to whether bidders offer campaign contributions.

In a letter last month to his colleagues proposing the session, Ethics Commissioner Uri D. Herscher said, “There remains a broad perception that the [Ethics] Commission is not serious in its work.”

The panel should act now while there is an appetite for reform, he added.

“I believe we have a remarkable window of opportunity of several months to develop and enact some needed changes,” Herscher said.

“Public officials, the media, law enforcement officials, as well as a public at large have seen a cascade of recent reports of official behavior that appear questionable.”

Commission President Gil Garcetti and Commissioner Bill Boyarsky agreed the panel should take advantage of the reform climate to consider changes.

Garcetti, the former Los Angeles County district attorney, said his top priority was to address the growing use of independent expenditure campaigns in which special interests can spend an unlimited amount to benefit a candidate as long as they do not coordinate their effort with the candidate.

Unrestricted independent spending by businesses, individuals and political parties -- which circumvent the city’s $1,000 limit on direct contributions to citywide candidates -- increased nearly 800% from $323,203 in 1993 to $2.5 million in 2001, the last citywide election, according to the Ethics Commission.

“For me, the big, 800-pound gorilla is independent expenditures,” Garcetti told his four commission colleagues and the panel’s top staff members during the informal round-table.

“That issue is going to be paramount on my agenda,” he said.

Garcetti said he would like the commission to look at what other cities have done to blunt the impact of independent expenditures, including New York City, which offers public matching funds at a 4-to-1 rate rather than Los Angeles’ 1-to-1 rate.

Boyarsky, a retired Times editor, said he also would like to reexamine the argument that the city cannot limit independent expenditures because making political contributions is protected by the 1st Amendment.

Whatever proposals the commission ultimately agree upon, any change in the ethics laws would require approval by the City Council, which last year shelved some measures aimed at reducing the influence of independent expenditures.

Garcetti also said he wants the commission to consider focusing its watchdog role on the city’s three proprietary departments -- those overseeing the harbor, airport and water and power -- which have been the focus of the current grand jury investigations and spend a total of more than $3.5 billion annually.

“There is a lot of money that comes from those departments,” Garcetti said in an interview.

“There is a tremendous amount of action taken by the commissioners and executive staff there in issuing contracts.”

Garcetti said he envisions the commission going through contract documents at the proprietary departments to look for possible conflicts of interest and corruption.

The public meeting, at which no votes were taken, comes a month after the council approved an Ethics Commission proposal to ban the city’s 350 commissioners from political fundraising for city candidates and city ballot measures.

But Herscher said there were other measures that should be considered that might also help reduce the potential for abuse by political appointees.

For instance, he suggested, the city should consider limiting city commissioners to no more than eight or 10 years of service.

Ted Stein, who is at the center of current controversy over fundraising by commissioners, has served off and on for 15 years on the airport, harbor and planning commissions under the administrations of Mayors Tom Bradley, Richard Riordan and James K. Hahn.

“Los Angeles is at risk of creating a class of persons -- not elected and not always clearly accountable to public scrutiny -- of unusual powers who by virtue of serving very extended times in one or more commissions are able to create or to prevent quite an extraordinary scale of activity,” Herscher said.

Herscher, the founding president and chief executive officer of the Skirball Cultural Center, said he wants the commission to ban all city commissioners from also serving as paid lobbyists at City Hall, something that Mayor Hahn has also proposed.

“I think it’s always that conflict of interest. I’d like to stay away from it wherever possible,” Herscher said.

In a six-page analysis presented to the commission, Herscher also said there might be value in cracking down on lobbyists who do not register and do not disclose their activity as required by law.

Tough sanctions, including loss of the contract being sought and a possible ban in doing business with the city for three years, might convince lobbyists and their clients to abide by the law, he suggested.

“This provides a positive incentive both to lobbyists and to the organizations they represent to make sure that doubts are resolved in favor of registration, since the consequences of not doing so may prove to be substantial,” Herscher wrote.

Reforms in place ban city commissioners from political fundraising and require lobbyists and contractors to disclose their fundraising activities.

The Ethics Commission plans another session April 13 -- at which time Hahn is scheduled to speak -- to begin refining its priorities and deciding on new policies that should be pursued.