Defend rules on pay-to-play contributions
Councilmembers OK city contracts with companies that have contributed thousands of dollars to their campaigns. Developers win approval for their projects after donating heavily to elected officials. Cannabis companies seeking licenses from a city beat out competitors after contributing more than $100,000 to councilmembers' campaigns. A sheriff gives preferential treatment to campaign contributors in doling out concealed weapons permits.
These California examples highlight the need to stop the pay-to-play ethos that plagues too many elected local government officials. It's why state Sens. Steve Glazer, a Democrat from Orinda, and Scott Wilk, a Republican from Lancaster, teamed up last year to author legislation, Senate Bill 1439, that prohibits local elected officials from accepting campaign contributions of $250 or more from parties who have business before them.
It's a commonsense law that passed both houses of the Legislature without opposition and was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. But last month, special-interest groups filed a lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court seeking to block the new restrictions.
The plaintiffs include two elected officials from Sacramento County who don't want the campaign funding spigot tightened and trade associations representing restaurant owners, retailers and builders, the very sorts of groups that like to flash their money around to influence local government decisions.
It would be nice to be able to dismiss this lawsuit as frivolous. Unfortunately, with U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have narrowed the scope of campaign finance rules, the outcome is anything but certain. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who will be charged with defending the state law, should aggressively protect the will of the Legislature and governor and the integrity of local government decision making.
The lawsuit makes two arguments. First, it claims that this was an overreach of California lawmakers' authority to amend the state's Political Reform Act, passed by voters in 1974. The act prohibited all government officials in California, including local elected lawmakers, from voting on matters in which they had a personal financial interest. Expanding that to include campaign contributions for local elected officials violates the state Constitution because it goes beyond what voters approved, opponents of SB 1439 argue.
Actually, this is exactly the sort of expansion envisioned when voters gave the Legislature authority to amend the act by a two-thirds vote of each house. The Legislature has identified an obvious area of abuse and toughened the law accordingly, consistent with the original initiative's goal of limiting the influence of special interest money in policymaking.
Second, opponents argue that the bill violates the federal free speech rights of interest groups. Here the legal debate drifts into the murky waters of where the legal line can be drawn between advocacy and financial candidate support protected under the U.S. Constitution, on one hand, and the legitimate need to stop political corruption on the other.
The U.S. Supreme Court for decades has been narrowing the ability to place limits on campaign financing. But the scope of SB 1439 is narrow, aimed only at prohibiting elected officials from making decisions that affect people from whom they are taking campaign contributions. It even allows those elected officials to give the money back if they want to vote on the issue.
But opponents want to have it both ways: They want to funnel money to elected officials and then allow them to vote on their projects, contracts or license applications. It's the sort of influence peddling that should offend all Californians.