Donors and politicians using county political parties to route hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns may not be violating the letter of California’s campaign law, but they are violating its intent, the state’s top campaign enforcer says.
“I’m all for strong political parties, but it ought not to be an opportunity for an end run around the contribution limits that the people thought that they were enacting,” said Ross Johnson, a long-time state lawmaker and current chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission.
As the Sacramento Bee’s Dan Walters noted in his column today, (and we noted in our story Sunday) Johnson was once a prominent sponsor of Proposition 34 – the sweeping campaign-reform initiative passed by voters in 2000 that many argue has done more harm than good. After all, we’re pretty sure high contribution limits, soft-money loopholes and other oft-maligned provisions didn’t sneak into the measure by mistake.
But Johnson caused a minor stir last fall when he apologized for his role in supporting the measure, which was carried by former state Sen. John Burton, now chairman of the California Democratic Party, and drafted by Democratic Party attorney Lance Olson.
In light of his experience both supporting and now enforcing Proposition 34, we asked Johnson a few questions about flaws in the measure since it passed nearly 10 years ago, and what he thinks might be done to fix them:
Why go so far as to apologize for Proposition 34?
“I supported Proposition 34 when it was in the Legislature, and I urged voters to support it because I believed it was better than nothing at all. At that time, we had just a total Wild West system in California … and I thought Prop. 34 was a step in the right direction.”
“I realized at the time that it was flawed. Some of those flaws were obvious to me; some have become apparent in the intervening years.”
Explain some of those flaws.
“(Contribution limits): It’s an insult to everyone’s intelligence to think that a U.S. Senate candidate in California can campaign raising money in $2,300 amounts (the fundraising limit for federal candidates in the United States) but someone campaigning for governor needs to raise money in $26,000 amounts. If I were king, we would mirror the limits in the federal law.”
“Independent expenditure (committees): It’s almost impossible to demonstrate that there’s coordination (between a campaign and an independent expenditure committee, which would be illegal), but … it is absurd in my opinion to presume that a candidate can be the beneficiary of an independent expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars and that he or she is sublimely ignorant of the source of that funding.”
“Candidate-controlled ballot-measure committees is another. It is an obscenity to say that giving a legislator $3,900 is an undue influence, but giving the same legislator $1 million for a ballot measure committee that he controls carries no potential for undue influence.”
He also highlighted the potential for abuse in the law’s behested payments system, which allows donors to give money to charities at the direction of a political official. Behested donations of less than $5,000 do not need to be disclosed under state law.
“I concede that behested payments can support worthwhile charities, but if I were still in the Senate and I had a brother-in-law who had a not-for-profit corporation, I could go to people and say ‘well I really appreciate that you’ve given the maximum to my re-election campaign, but another way you could be helpful would be to write a $4,999 contribution to my brother-in-law’s not-for profit, and – two things – you’ll never have to report that to anybody … and you’ll get a tax deduction for it.”
“And 10 days before the election, my brother-in-law can put out a mailing using his not-for-profit corporation. He doesn’t say ‘Vote for Ross Johnson’ (which would be illegal) – he would just say ‘Friends of Upper Newport Bay have never had a better friend than Sen. Ross Johnson – a true champion of the environment.’ The potential for abuse is very real.”
It’s hard to convince lawmakers to police themselves when it comes to campaign cash. What simple steps could lawmakers, regulators or the public take right now to curb potential campaign abuses in the future?
“I would have the reporting process made more transparent, more frequent reporting, and also more online reporting.” Johnson suggested that candidates should be assigned a unique identifying number – like a social security number – that follows them through their political careers.
“The first time you run for office, you are assigned a candidate ID number, and that number, like your social security number, follows you for the rest of your life. Any campaign you ever run in California would be required to have that ID number … so that someone who wants to know about you can look back over the last 30 years and see ‘here’s who supported Johnson.’”
“It’s a terribly difficult thing to follow the changing names of committees, the multiple committees at the same time. That would be enormously helpful to encourage ordinary citizens to become involved and pay attention to it.”
As Walters noted this morning, it’s not hard to imagine that the county-party loophole we pointed out wasn’t an oversight at all. And despite his contrition, Johnson did support the measure despite being aware of at least some of its flaws. But Johnson also said he hopes lawmakers eventually clean up many of the messes left behind by Prop. 34.
“Some people may look at that and say that the experience with Prop. 34 means that reform can’t work, and I say that’s just nonsense. What it does prove is that Prop. 34 doesn’t work and the people of California deserve reform that does work.”
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