Lawyers Help Measure Exempting Them From Donation Limits

Struggling in the polls and starved for money, the Proposition 89 campaign is getting an assist from trial lawyers — the very group that would be exempt from a major provision of the campaign-finance initiative on the November ballot.

Colleague Dan Morain says the trial law firms Greene Broillet & Wheeler of Santa Monica and Furtado, Jaspovice & Simons of Hayward each gave $10,000 this week. Proposition 89's restrictions on corporate donations to ballot measure campaigns would not apply to trial attorneys, whose firms generally are set up as limited liability partnerships. (UPDATE: The Hayward firm, however, was organized as a corporation.)

Corporations would be restricted to donating $10,000 or less to initiative campaigns. Opponents say an exemption in the initiative sets up an unlevel playing field, allowing Indian tribes, millionaires and trial lawyers to dominate the public debate over ballot measures. Michael Lighty, campaign manager for Prop. 89, responded: "We're soliciting contributions from anyone who is interested in stopping political corruption."

Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (in photo) — who pledged not to raise taxes in his 2005 reelection campaign — has donated $250,000 to support Proposition 86, the tobacco tax to pay for hospitals and health programs. Shane Goldmacher has the story.

(Photo: Scott Wintrow / Getty Images)