By: CJ Dablo
Staff Writer
Money has always been the unspoken phantom in any room. Now that the new ordinance that changes the Long Beach rules governing campaign finance has been passed by the city council and signed by Mayor Robert Garcia, there is an uncomfortable question now before every city leader who sits on the council dais: What will they do with the money they’ve raised and will continue to raise?
Last month, the Long Beach City Council voted 5-3 to approve the ordinance that changed the campaign-finance rules that formerly did not allow money from a city councilmember’s officeholder account to be transferred to the account of another candidate running for a local, state or federal office.
This particular outdated rule dates back to about 1999 and had been amended in 2014, according to the city attorney’s office. The new ordinance now allows key city officials to take money from their own officeholder accounts and transfer or donate that money to another candidate’s campaign. Citing the municipal code, City Attorney Charles Parkin confirmed in a statement to the Signal Tribune that there are still rules that apply to donations in a calendar year, including contribution limits of $750 toward councilmember officeholder expense funds as well as limits of $1,000 toward officeholder expense funds for the offices of the city attorney, city auditor, city prosecutor and the mayor.
Councilmembers Daryl Supernaw, Suzie Price and Stacy Mungo voted against the law when the time came for a final reading of the ordinance on April 18. Vice Mayor Rex Richardson was not present for the vote due to the birth of his daughter, Richardson’s office confirmed this week. The remaining councilmembers voted to approve the ordinance.
Price, who represents the 3rd District, released a message to her constituents the night the council took the vote. She indicated that the funds raised for her district will stay local and not be used to contribute to another candidate for office. Price stressed, both in her statement to her constituents and in a phone interview with the Signal Tribune, that if she wanted to support a candidate running for office, she would write a personal check to their campaign. The 3rd-district councilmember also emphasized the point that she was not encouraging others to follow her lead.
“It’s my own personal value,” Price told the Signal Tribune, “that if people are going to donate money to the officeholder account, they should have faith in knowing that that money is going to be recycled right back [!] into the community that they’re designating the money to be used in.”
Price said that her officeholder account has been used to benefit local programs. She stressed that she believed that all of the colleagues on the council dais have their respective communities’ best interest in mind.
“And I don’t question their motives at all,” she concluded, “but I think when you open it up, there’s always a risk for abuse, and so for me, I want our donors to know!where that money is going to be used. I think having that assurance helps.”
Many of the other councilmembers’ offices did not respond to emailed media requests for an interview on the matter. However, one former city councilmember defended the decision that the 5-3 majority made last month to change the rules. Former councilmember Tonia Reyes Uranga, who served on the city council from 2002 to 2010, had to work under the old rules. In a phone interview, she noted that these rules were not only out-of-date, they were also very unique to Long Beach. She supported the council’s April decision to change them, noting that Long Beach was an “outlier” when it pertained to its campaign-finance rules, and she couldn’t think of any other city that had the old rules in the first place.
“We are not the rule,” Reyes Uranga said of Long Beach’s now outdated laws. She further argued how politicians will want to support other candidates for office who are in line with their own political philosophy to get programs that would benefit the city.
The former councilmember also noted that contributors do have a choice, before they sign their name to any check. Reyes Uranga stated that if one didn’t like what an officeholder is doing, they could always not give them money. She added with a laugh that the law can be used for good, not evil. Reyes Uranga also noted that there are limits to how much a candidate can receive.
Supernaw, who represents the 4th District, took a special exception to the change in the rules and the new ordinance, as he noted in a phone interview that all of the constituents who commented to him on the issue were against the changes. However, he also stressed a point he made to the council last month before his colleagues voted.
“And we’ve really blown it by not [!] convincing the people that we were doing the right thing,” Supernaw said. “Whichever side you come out on this, whether you are for or against this, one thing our council did not do is explain to the public what was going on here. And that is an ethics violation.”
It’s a defeat for Supernaw and Price that doesn’t have many options for an easy fix. Supernaw noted that one former councilmember recommended eliminating the officeholder accounts all together. Supernaw compared that proposal to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The 4th-district councilmember also noted that since a ballot measure would likely be considered unconstitutional, according to the city attorney’s office, that option wouldn’t be a good one either. Supernaw noted that there was a possibility the new rules could be overturned, if someone presented a legal challenge.
Like other municipalities, the City of Long Beach is no stranger to lawsuits, however, Parkin stated in an email to the Signal Tribune that he was not aware of any legal challenge or action taken against the City in protest of the new ordinance with the rule change.
At press time, Mayor Garcia was unavailable for an interview or comment on the issue.
