Los Angeles and San Diego will no longer enforce limits on how much money corporations and unions can directly give in city elections, bowing to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that found such caps unconstitutional.
In Los Angeles, the city Ethics Commission passed a resolution saying it would no longer bar corporations and unions from using money from their own treasuries to expressly advocate for or against a candidate. The resolution, adopted last week, was made public Wednesday.
In San Diego, city officials were pushed by a federal lawsuit brought by the local Republican Party, a construction industry group and several individuals. A federal judge Thursday ordered the city to immediately lift its law limiting how much money corporations and labor groups can pump into municipal elections.
The plaintiffs praised the injunctions imposed by Judge Irma E. Gonzalez on several provisions of the city’s finance law. Ron Nehring, chairman of the state Republican Party, said the ruling would not favor one party over another but would make it easier for a challenger to defeat an incumbent.
“This ruling will make elections more competitive in San Diego while placing other localities on notice that the obligation to protect the 1st Amendment rights of citizens applies to them too," Nehring said in a statement issued after the judge’s ruling.
Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause, a nonprofit group that advocates for campaign finance laws, had a different take. Feng said it would now be easier for special interests to “drown out regular citizens’ voices.”
“The big concern is that both on the corporate and the union side this is going to lead to an arms race in political spending, “ she said. “It will allow well-funded special interests to try to influence elections.”
In Los Angeles, the ruling was not expected to yield dramatic changes in the contributions made by unions and businesses, which have had a history of spending significant sums in campaigns.
Last year, the union that represents employees at the Department of Water and Power spent more than $148,000 to help then-Councilwoman Wendy Greuel win her bid to become city controller. Months later, two business groups — the Central City Assn. and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce –- spent nearly $39,000 in an unsuccessful effort to help onetime entertainment industry executive Chris Essel replace Greuel on the council.
But corporations will no longer need to form political action committees or participate in larger advocacy groups to spend money on behalf of city candidates, officials with the Ethics Commission said.
[Updated at 10:27 a.m. Thursday: Ethics Commission Executive Director LeeAnn Pelham said Thursday the Supreme Court ruling will not eliminate the city law that imposes limits on contributions from businesses and labor unions to candidates at City Hall — $500 for council members and $1,000 for citywide candidates.
However, the considerably larger “independent expenditures”–money that can be given to a political action committee to support or oppose a candidate–now will be allowed to come directly from the treasuries of unions and businesses.]
Meanwhile, other counties and cities are looking at their own campaign finance laws and making changes to ensure they don’t face lawsuits similar to the one brought against San Diego.
In Ventura County, for instance, supervisors are expected to amend a campaign finance ordinance that limited contributions from so-called independent expenditure committees.
Supervisor Steve Bennett, an advocate of tough campaign finance limits, said the board would try to raise disclosure requirements so voters will know who is contributing to candidates.
“We will at least do the best we can," he said. “This is a dramatic change for the worse for our local elections.”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, issued earlier this month, has been received with both glee and alarm across the nation.
Supporters say the high court was correct in ruling that corporations and unions have the same rights as individuals and should be able to contribute directly to elections.
Opponents say that the ruling opens the floodgates to unlimited corporate and union cash flowing into the campaigns of candidates who will vote in their favor and that it removed a century-old prohibition on such spending in federal elections.
The impact at the state level is negligible because California is one of 26 states that have no limits on corporate and union contributions. But a handful of municipalities, including Los Angeles and San Diego, have tried to regulate spending by groups or companies in local campaigns.
— Catherine Saillant and David Zahniser