Campaign finance battle ends with a whimper

The state Fair Political Practices Commission has given up trying to limit donations to candidate-controlled ballot committees, such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's California Recovery Team. Chairman Ross Johnson says he's disappointed with recent court rulings, and now is looking to the Legislature for reforms. Good luck!

The courts have said that Proposition 34, which restricts donations to candidates, allows politicians to operate separate committees that can raise unlimited amounts of money. The donations can only be used for legislative "advocacy" or ballot-measure business - descriptions that permit all sorts of campaign-like activity that promote the individual candidate.

The California Recovery Team is still collecting huge donations that ostensibly help pay for the governor's private jet travel and other major expenses. (Among them, the California Assn. of Hospitals and Health Systems donated $100K last week, amid ongoing negotiations over health care reforms in the governor's office.)

"The intellectual inconsistency of the courts astounds me," Johnson said in a statement. "What represents the greater potential for the appearance of corruption, $3,600 to a candidate’s reelection committee or $100,000 to a ballot measure committee controlled by that same candidate? The answer is obvious: The appearance of undue influence comes from the receipt of the contribution, not in how the money is spent!"

A ballot measure committee that was working to advance Schwarzenegger's special election agenda in 2005, Citizens to Save California, filed a lawsuit challenging the rules in February 2005.

Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang ruled the commission lacked legal authority to impose contribution limits on candidate-controlled committees. A Court of Appeal upheld the ruling last December, and now the FPPC under Johnson has decided it will drop the case altogether.

UPDATE: So let's just recap: The governor's only major accomplishment from the 2005 special election was to assure unlimited political donations to ballot committees, two years after winning the recall on a promise of sweeping away special interests.