- Campaign finance experts have no doubt that lawmakers knew exactly what they were doing when, at midnight Wednesday, they resuscitated a measure that appeared to have been left for dead months ago.
Legislative leaders suddenly fast-tracked the measure, skipping committee votes on SB 145 by Kevin Murray (D-Culver City). The bill would lift the ban on sitting officeholders’ accepting contributions when they are no longer running for reelection or for another seat. The money raised could be used for such things as meals and travel.
It was a classic move, one that didn’t give public interest groups “time to get all riled up and get people to oppose it,” said Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles. “This bill allows them to create personal slush funds.”
Derek Cressman, executive director of TheRestofUs.org, a Sacramento group that monitors campaign finance, called the measure “exactly the wrong thing to do.”
Supporters of the bill, including legislative leaders from both parties, say they need such funds for traveling to events and for paying the lawyers who file their campaign finance reports. Although the last public hearing for the measure was more than a year ago, they say state regulators were consulted on all the changes made since then.
The measure, said Richard Stapler, spokesman for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), updates obsolete rules that “complicate an elected official’s ability to carry out all of their oficeholder activities.”