This Office Should Be Spotless

The growing scandal surrounding Secretary of State Kevin Shelley underscores why California’s elections chief should be nonpartisan. Among other subjects, state and federal agencies are investigating the circumstances in which three contributors donated to Shelley’s 2002 campaign after they received payments from a $500,000 state grant that he helped arrange when he was an assemblyman. If there is a connection, it would represent a new twist in public funding of campaigns: Appropriate money for a public project and then launder the funds into a political campaign.

The scandal could cost Shelley his job, which would give Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a chance to take politics out of the secretary of state’s job.

Exactly why the post appears on a partisan ballot is something of a mystery. From 1910 until 1970, two men named Frank Jordan -- father and son -- held the office. Both were nominal Republicans, but neither was considered partisan. Although Jerry Brown used his single term as a stepping stone to the governor’s chair, his two successors, Democrat March Fong Eu and Republican Bill Jones, ran the office in a nonpartisan manner.

The current secretary of state, by contrast, has doled out half a million dollars in federal Help America Vote Act funds to Democratic activists to run registration and get-out-the-vote drives. The money was among the millions of dollars Congress appropriated to improve the conduct of elections after the 2000 Florida debacle. One Los Angeles operative got $85,000 in federal funds and spent it on, among other things, “voter outreach” at a tribute to Janet Jackson at the NBA All-Star Game in February. Shelley also reportedly used federal money to award numerous no-bid contracts to political friends and allies. His former campaign consultant got one for $119,000. Shelley canceled them all after the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which oversees the funds, threatened to audit the contracts.

Shelley is the first secretary of state accused of abusing the elections process for partisan political gain, and he is fast becoming a California version of former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican who some Democrats charge helped steal the presidential election for George W. Bush in 2000. Harris clearly tried to boost Bush’s chances of winning Florida -- and therefore the presidency -- by frustrating Democratic efforts to recount disputed ballots. But her greater contribution may have come before the election when, applying Florida law, she purged thousands of African Americans from the voter rolls because they were felons. There is some evidence that nonfelons were purged as well.

Harris’ conduct in 2000 and Shelley’s this year show that election chiefs should be nonpartisan. But in addition to making the secretary of state job free of partisanship, California should impose strict rules on what the staff -- in particular, the non-Civil Service staff the secretary hires -- can and cannot do with money intended to conduct elections. The voter outreach funds distributed by the secretary’s office were overseen by Tony Miller, a Shelley hire and a longtime political operative who is a former acting secretary of state.

There is recent precedent for Schwarzenegger to appoint a nonpartisan to the office should Shelley be forced to leave. After scandal chased Chuck Quackenbush from his insurance commissioner post in 2000, then-Gov. Gray Davis picked a retired appellate court justice, Harry Low, to replace him. Low didn’t seek election to the office and helped restore the public’s confidence in the position.

Unfortunately, Republicans hoping to grab a statewide office are floating names of termed-out legislators should Schwarzenegger get an appointment. That would be a mistake.

The secretary of state’s first duty is to run clean elections, and there are numerous experienced elections officials in the state capable of doing that. At the county level, elections officials are hired by boards of supervisors, and for years we have had among the cleanest elections in the nation.

The Shelley saga is likely to extend beyond this election cycle, especially with federal grand juries convened to examine his conduct. Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger should make known his position on recently introduced legislation that would make the secretary of state office nonpartisan, like that of the superintendent of public instruction. The governor, who campaigned on the promise of a clean sweep in Sacramento, should put his considerable prestige behind making this a nonpolitical office.