Council focuses on contribution limits
CITY HALL A proposal to create a “fair fight fund” for candidates attacked by special interest groups failed to win the support of the City Council on Tuesday after elected officials questioned whether or not public money could be set aside for that purpose.
There were just too many unanswered questions for three of the five Councilmembers present to support a fair fight fund, such as: Who would determine what an attack is? How much money would be given to respond to an attack? And how would the fund be effective if an uncontrolled committee distributed mailers or ran television ads a day before the election, leaving little time to react?
Instead of moving forward, the council seemed to back away from publicly financing political campaigns, and instead put the focus back on contribution limits, asking the city’s top elections official and the city attorney to look at ways to cut down on spending by independent groups by enforcing existing law establishing a $250 contribution limit.
In past elections, some independent groups have accepted large sums of money from a donor, some giving as much as $30,000 at a time. There has been talk of possibly raising the limit to coincide with increases in election costs.
“I need to see something better defined (on fair fight funding) and something that sounds realistic to me,” said Mayor Richard Bloom, who voted against the fair fight fund, mainly because it came as a surprise to him since it was presented late in the process.
The City Clerk’s Office, which is in charge of administering and monitoring local elections, has been studying the electoral process for nearly a year, holding a town hall meeting to find out from residents what is working and what needs to be fixed. Most residents felt the process was going well, except for the negative campaigning. Several called for public financing, or “clean money” campaigns in which candidates are encouraged to spend less during an election in exchange for tax payer money.
In a report to the council, the clerk presented several public financing options, none of which included the fair fight proposal, which was only recently presented. The cost of each proposal varies, with some putting the price tag as high as $540,000 per election.
“Much time has been spent, the community has been very involved and here we have a staff report … that is intended to bring this process forward and now I’m hearing that that idea doesn’t quite cut it because it’s too expensive,” Bloom said. “I’m really taken aback to be hearing an entirely different approach that may or may not be a good idea and we should not be asking staff to make a U-turn … and study something else.”
Residents urged the council to create a fair fight fund to respond to attack ads from independent expenditure committees, which have increased their spending on local elections by 800 percent since 2002.
Residents feel help is needed given last year’s spending in which an uncontrolled group, Santa Monicans for Sensible Priorities, used over $400,000 from the hospitality industry to run cable television ads targeting Councilman Kevin McKeown.
That plan backfired, with McKeown receiving more votes than any other candidate.
At least three Councilmembers — Bloom, Bobby Shriver and Pam O’Connor — felt public financing was not necessary for Santa Monica at this time, insisting that the electorate is educated enough to decipher which messages are true and which are false.
They also questioned whether or not there was a serious outbreak of negative campaigning. While last year Santa Monicans saw for the first time cable television ads attacking a candidate, the tactic wasn’t successful because of grass roots organizing, a tradition in local politics.
“I’m not quite sure how you get from Kevin’s experience to we have a serious problem,” Shriver said. “Another way of looking at those facts is that we have a good situation here.”
There is a low, campaign contribution limit of $250, an informed public and a City Clerk’s Office that quickly posts all contributions and expenditures online for the public to view, making for a democratic process that is healthy, Shriver said.
“Most people see through these ads,” Shriver said. “People are smart and I think they get the picture.”
While he would like to see all negative campaigning disappear, Shriver, who is no stranger to politics coming from a family that has a rich history of public service, said the reality is, “band news travels faster than good news.”
“It’s just a fact of human life,” he said. “People like a little naughty story from time to time.”
Even so, public financing advocates said limiting the influence of special interest groups was important and needs to be addressed, either through a fair fight fund or through a public financing plan that would require candidates to voluntarily limit the amount of money they spend in exchange for public money.
Supporters realized that independent groups and candidates do have first amendment rights that protect their ability to reach out to voters, making it difficult to control spending. That is why they feel it is necessary to look at the other side, that being contributions, and put limits on that.
“There will be challenges to any proposal that comes off the table,” said resident John Petz, who has been very active in campaigns supporting bonds for local schools. “The basic refrain when it comes to election reform is that you can’t do that because of the First Amendment, or that it costs too much or takes too much time and candidates can’t be bothered wit it.
“Over and over we come back to the same place, that there’s really not much we can do,” Petz added.“We may not be able to control expenditures … but we do have a choice in how we respond in our community.”
Tom Larmore, an attorney who has been involved in local campaigns, said he was troubled by the fair fight suggestion, asking the same kinds of questions council members were.
“I’m surprised by the talk of a fair fight,” Larmore said. “It is incredibly inappropriate if it means that some city-appointed commission is going to judge the fairness and accuracy of mail pieces or other campaign statements and then make some determination if funding be made by the city. I find major problems with that.”
The City Clerks Office pointed out that candidates already receive plenty of public financing in the form of free election services. The City Clerk’s Office said candidates receive anywhere from $13,500 to $18,500 in free services such as posting candidate statements on the Web site and translating those statements in a second language. Candidate also receive free air time on City TV, Santa Monica’s cable network, which continuously runs interviews with the candidates during the campaign, something which is valued at $12,000 to $17,000.
McKeown, who thanked voters for their support during the last election was visibly disappointed by the council’s decision to put public financing on hold and called for further study to continue on a fair fight fund, which he felt would help candidates counter attacks.
“I want to make sure that the long term fall out of this is not some possible candidate sitting out there thinking, ‘Do I want to go through this kind of misery to serve my community?” he said. “I would like to give some assurance that a future candidate will not have to go through this. That’s where I think this is important.”
Others agreed, at least in part. They expressed concerns about the lack of minority candidates and wondered what the cause of that may be. Public financing may be a way to bring in more minority candidates, giving them some support.
Council member O’Connor, who too was the target of a hit piece in the last election which called into question contributions she received from the owners of Santa Monica Place, felt it was important to mention that by voting against the fair fight proposal, she was not saying she is opposed to public financing.
“To say so would be a distortion of the discussion and that would be negative campaigning,” she said.
The voters spoke loud and clear in the last election that they won’t be swayed by attacks, O’Connor said, “and we need to keep putting the pressure on folks outside and within our community that negative campaigning is not going to be effective in Santa Monica.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 25, 2007. Read the original PDF.