What unlimited party money laundering can do in California

For most Californians, the year-2000 Proposition 34 was little more than a meaningless formality. But not to politicians or political party officials.

The 18-year-old initiative sets inflation-adjusted limits on what individuals and organizations can donate to candidates, ranging today from $4,400 for state legislative races to $29,200 for those running for governor. But there are no limits on giving to state and local political parties or how they can spend that money.

This gets little notice from most Californians, even those who examine the fine print on election-time mailers to see who is behind them.

But it surely means a lot to politicians and their parties. The power these rules give parties to launder money earmarked for particular candidates was behind the bitter and very close race last winter between Eric Bauman and Kimberly Ellis over who would be the next chairperson of the California Democratic Party.

But perhaps the most dramatic and clear-cut example of political parties’ power to launder cash and pass it along to intended recipients involved a locally well-known power couple during the spring primary campaign in San Diego County.

The couple: Democratic state Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher and her husband Nathan Fletcher, a former Republican whip in the Assembly and a two-time loser in runs for mayor of San Diego.

Fletcher, who converted from Republican to Democrat in 2012 and 2013, with an intermediate stop as an independent, was one of five primary election candidates this spring for a seat on his county’s Board of Supervisors, getting largescale financial support from the local Democratic Party and some from the county’s labor unions.

But nothing matches what he’s gotten from his wife. By the end of the primary season,