Unions’ political funding raises fears

Three years ago, campaign finance experts watched with alarm as one-fifth of the money raised on behalf of Los Angeles mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa came from “independent expenditures,” special interests with no limits on how much they could collect and spend.

The numbers were even more jaw-dropping for Villaraigosa’s opponent, then-Mayor James K. Hahn. Although he lost his bid for a second term, Hahn saw one-third of his financial backing, or $2 million, come from such groups.

But those amounts look tame compared to the $8.5 million amassed so far this year by an array of labor unions seeking to elect state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas to the county Board of Supervisors on Nov. 4. For every $1 raised by Ridley-Thomas, those unions have raised nearly $9 for a separate campaign on his behalf, according to fundraising reports.

The change has not gone unnoticed by other city and county politicians, who fear the supervisorial election will establish a new precedent, inspiring real estate developers, billboard companies, employee unions and other special interests to pursue a similar strategy in future campaigns.

“It’s out-and-out buying an election,” said Supervisor Gloria Molina, who has endorsed Ridley-Thomas’ opponent, City Council member Bernard Parks.

“If the special interests see this as being successful, there’s no telling how far it will go, and it will be much easier for candidates to submit to special interests instead of going out, working hard and raising [their own] money,” she said.

Molina predicted that she would be the next target of a union independent expenditure campaign when she comes up for reelection in 2010. Meanwhile, one veteran Los Angeles lobbyist marveled at the sheer size of the union campaign, calling it “off-the-charts extraordinary.”

“Other than governor, I don’t know that there are statewide candidates that spend that much,” said lobbyist Steve Afriat.

Ridley-Thomas said Parks and his supporters are simply upset that they failed to secure the backing of the county’s powerful Federation of Labor, known for its ability to win elections. And he defended the current campaign arrangement, saying he is following all laws that apply to outside campaign groups.

“It’s appropriate. It’s fair. It’s legal,” he said. “And the only reason they’re criticizing it is because they don’t have this level of support.”

The Alliance for a Stronger Community, a union coalition, has raised the vast majority of independent expenditures for Ridley-Thomas, whose own campaign must adhere to the city’s rules limiting donations to no more than $1,000 per contributor per election cycle. In return for having the ability to raise unlimited amounts, independent committees are legally prohibited from coordinating with the candidates they support.

Independent expenditures came into being in the mid-1970s after Congress passed a law placing a $1,000 limit on campaign contributions. In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the limits on individuals and groups spending independently on behalf of candidates, saying they violated donors’ constitutionally protected right to free speech.

The first significant independent expenditures appeared in 1980, when the National Conservative Political Action Committee and the Fund for a Conservative Majority spent more than $10 million on behalf of President Reagan.

Five years later, the Supreme Court ruled again, saying that any effort to limit spending by such groups would violate the 1st Amendment.

In Los Angeles, such groups began to play a significant role in 2001, when term limits created 10 competitive city government races. At the top of the ticket, labor threw its weight behind Villaraigosa, and Indian gaming interests financed some of the nastiest attacks of the campaign on behalf of Hahn.

Two years later, independent expenditure groups contributed $1 for every $1 raised by the City Council campaign of Martin Ludlow, a union activist. Ludlow won the seat but left in 2005 to run the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. While serving in that role, he was convicted on charges that he illegally took union contributions while running for council that exceeded the spending limits.

In most city races, independent expenditures essentially ran a secondary campaign, one that represented a fraction of the efforts by a candidate.

This year’s county contest reverses that equation, with independent expenditures dominating the race and Ridley-Thomas’ campaign looking like a bit player.

So far this year, the labor coalition has used its largesse to hire researchers, send campaign mailers, erect campaign signs, purchase full-page newspaper ads, reserve radio advertising time and develop 30-second television spots in English and Spanish for Ridley-Thomas, none of which can be coordinated by the candidate.

The overwhelming effort means that Ridley-Thomas has been able to avoid some of the expenses that candidates typically face. For example, many who run for office in South Los Angeles, including Parks, place at least a few advertisements in the Los Angeles Sentinel, the region’s most prominent black-owned newspaper.

Last spring, two union groups bought at least 11 full-page ads promoting Ridley-Thomas as part of their independent expenditure. Ridley-Thomas did not purchase any.

Service Employees International Union Local 721, the biggest donor to the union initiative, called a news conference Friday at which Ridley-Thomas was expected to discuss county hospital funding. Only union officials attended, not Ridley-Thomas.

“Mark doesn’t even have to show up,” Parks said. “Mark could take a vacation and the [union] campaign would keep running.”

Ridley-Thomas, in turn, accused Parks of “bashing” unions. And he pointed out that he has not faulted Parks for benefiting from three other independent expenditure committees, which are primarily backed by real estate interests. Those groups raised nearly $450,000 during the period ending Oct. 18, according to campaign reports.

With such a financial mismatch, Parks has spent much of his time calling donors, $1,000 at a time. Even if he increased those efforts, the county election law bars him from spending more than $1.4 million in the runoff, a fraction of the union effort.

Parks warned that if Ridley-Thomas is elected, the county Federation of Labor would use the same strategy to install two more pliant county supervisors by 2012.

Arnella Sims, a board member with SEIU Local 721, said she could not predict whether her union would wage another massive campaign. But Afriat, the lobbyist, said warnings about a tidal wave of independent expenditures strike him as overblown.

“The unions don’t have to do that at City Hall because they already control what happens there,” he said. “And I think the business community, which said they would step up for Parks, is demonstrating that they are not capable of doing it the way the unions are doing it.”

Labor unions do not have a monopoly on huge independent expenditures. In this year’s June legislative primary, state Senate candidate Rod Wright benefited from at least $990,000 spent on his behalf by the Alliance for California’s Tomorrow, a business group bankrolled by healthcare companies, casinos and other entities.

That independent expenditure group hired campaign consultants, secured billboard space and placed ads for Wright in newspapers stretching from Inglewood to Long Beach.

Wright’s own campaign organization spent just $330,000.

Officials with the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission fear the huge money spent in the supervisorial race will lead to louder demands from elected officials that the city roll back its fundraising limits on individual candidates.

The only thing that could stem the tide of independent expenditures -- frequently called I.E.s by political professionals -- is a successful lawsuit before the high court, said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Government Studies, a Los Angeles group that tracks campaign finance laws.

“Until it reaches a point where the court says it’s gone too far and is corrupting the system -- and I think it does -- there will be unlimited I.E.s,” he said.

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david.zahniser@latimes.com

Jean-Paul Renaud contributed to this report.