There are good reasons for most of the city’s campaign finance laws. Individual contribution limits are intended to keep a single donor from purchasing the support of a candidate. Public financing is intended to level the playing field between incumbents and challengers. Limits on gifts help deter graft.
But Los Angeles has one regulation that doesn’t show up in many other places, and it doesn’t make much sense: Candidates who raise money for an election cannot carry that money over if they fail to win in the first round and face a runoff for the same office. What that’s meant in this election cycle is that both Councilman Eric Garcetti and Controller Wendy Greuel, who spent years raising money for the first round of the campaign for mayor, had to start all over when they made the runoff.
Because of the law, at the very moment a mayoral campaign gets serious and voters tune in, candidates have to return to the unpleasant business of begging for money. Immediately after winning the first round in the mayor’s race, for instance, Garcetti darted off to Washington for fundraisers. And Greuel turned to stalwart supporters to post 82 donations in 72 hours, all at the maximum amount of $1,300 — for a total of $106,000.