Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Thursday, August 16, 2001

 

Page 10

 

Council Votes to Sustain Mayor’s Veto of Campaign Finance Reform

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

The City Council yesterday sustained mayor James Hahn’s veto of a campaign finance reform ordinance and vowed to complete what some members called “comprehensive” reform before the next fund-raising season opens in October for the 2003 council races.

A divided council first rejected an attempt to recast the action as a more traditional vote to override the mayoral veto, then voted 12-2 to follow the recommendation of Council President Alex Padilla and sustain Hahn’s veto.

In committee last week, Ethics Commission Executive Director LeeAnn Pelham told Padilla her staff is currently poring over data from the most recent election and expects to have a report and recommendations to the council by the end of the year to address problems posed by independent expenditures and changes in state law created by the passage last year of Proposition 34.

The vetoed action would have shortened the fund-raising period, as well as jump-started the earning of city matching funds. Hahn, in vetoing the measure, said he wanted something comprehensive that would encompass matching funds, the fund-raising period and independent expenditures in a single package.

But with the Ethics Commission’s data on the latest campaign not expected for several weeks, the council would have to act within a narrow window in October or risk changing the rules after the fund raising already begins for 2003. Miscikowski warned her colleagues that they were risking not implementing a reform that was first broached more than two years ago until the citywide elections of 2005.

“The more that something is comprehensive... the more it has pieces in it that can create some conflict,” Miscikowski said.

 

Copyright 2001, Metropolitan News Company