Sacramento, CA — California’s elections watchdog wants assurances
that politicians aren’t tapping campaign funds to pay for personal
travel, meals and gifts.
The
Fair Political Practices Commission tentatively approved regulations Thursday that would require candidates
to demonstrate that campaign spending on meals, gifts and out-of-state
trips had a legitimate political, legislative or governmental purpose.
The 5-0 vote follows news stories questioning Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez’s
use of campaign funds for gifts and travel in Europe, although
commission officials said the regulations weren’t a response to any
particular incident.
"This is something that I’ve felt very strongly for a long time
that we should be looking at," said commission chairman Ross Johnson, a
former state senator.
The new rules would require that state and local candidates and
officeholder’s campaign finance reports include "facts sufficient to
demonstrate" that gifts, meals and out-of-state travel had the
political, legislative or governmental purpose required by law.
The reports would also have to reveal:
– The nature of any gifts bought with campaign funds and the names of the recipients.
– Dates of any meals paid for by campaign funds, the number of
people whose food was paid for and whether they included the candidate,
a member of his or her household or someone on the campaign staff with
the authority to approve expenditures.
– The dates and destinations of out-of-state travel covered by
campaign donations, the goods and services paid for with that money and
the number of people whose travel expenses were picked up by the
campaigns. These reports also would have to reveal if the travelers
included the candidate, a member of the candidate’s household or
someone on the campaign staff with expenditure-approving authority.
Currently, candidates and officeholders don’t have to supply
nearly that much detail in campaign finance reports they are required
to file. They can use abbreviations such as MTG for meetings and
appearances or TRC for candidate travel, lodging and meals to explain
individual expenditures.
Nunez, a Los Angeles Democrat, used the same type of symbols to
describe thousands of dollars in purchases he made earlier this year in
Europe, including $5,149 for a "meeting" at Cave L’Avant Garde, a wine
seller in France’s Bordeaux region, and $2,562 for "office expenses" at
Louis Vuitton, a Parisian store that
specializes in leather goods, clothing, fashion accessories and
jewelry.
A spokesman for Nunez, Steve Maviglio, said the Cave L’Avant
Garde and Louis Vuitton purchases were for meals and gifts for French
officials during a trip taken by lawmakers to examine high-speed rail
in France.
Maviglio said the speaker has "always followed the letter of
the law" in his use of campaign funds and nevertheless "applauds the FPPC for its actions to increase disclosure and transparency."
Commission members A. Eugene Huguenin Jr. and Robert Leidigh
voted with their colleagues to tentatively approve the regulations. But
they said the language requiring candidates to provide "facts
sufficient to demonstrate" that campaign spending for travel, meals and
gifts had legitimate political or governmental purposes was too vague.
"Do you have to write a book or what?" Leidigh, a former deputy
attorney general, asked, about explaining the purpose of a gift, meal
or trip.
"I don’t think we should be in the position of telling
politicians what is political," added Huguenin. "Those are terms of art
and they are the experts."
Scott Hallabrin, the commissioner’s general counsel, said a
"very simple statement" about the purpose of a meal, gift or trip would
be adequate.
"We’re not requiring any great deal of information," he said.
"Just something that would more or less give an indication, a brief
statement of what was the purpose."
Johnson said the regulations would be meaningless without a
requirement that the candidate spell out "with some specificity" what
the political or governmental purpose was behind the purchases.
He said any critics of the regulations could suggest amendments
before the commission takes final action on the rules, probably in
February.
No one testified against the regulations at Thursday’s hearing,
but Jonathan Fuhrman, a Pasadena resident who said he’d worked as a
campaign treasurer for legislators and local officials, wrote the
commission a letter saying that the regulations could create problems
in filing campaign reports on line.
He also complained that the new rules were "excessively broad
and so subject to personal interpretation that compliance would be
difficult to measure or enforce."
Tony Miller, who heads the division of the secretary of state’s
office that collects campaign finance reports, said his office would
work with the FPPC to implement the new rules.
The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a consumer and
political reform group based in Santa Monica, praised the commission
for considering tougher disclosure rules but said the requirements
should go beyond what the commission was proposing to include details
about activities on a trip and a
list of participants.
On the Net: www.fppc.ca.gov
