Senate OKs Curbs on Last-Minute Campaign Gifts : Politics: Legislators approve $1,000 limit on contributions in final three weeks of a race, when large donations are often used for bitter surprise attacks.

SACRAMENTO —  Legislation designed to de-escalate the campaign arms race by restricting last-minute political contributions that often finance election eve smear attacks won bipartisan approval of the Senate on Thursday.

The bill (SB 754) would outlaw contributing or accepting a donation of more than $1,000 during the final three weeks before Election Day in all California election races--from school trustee to governor.

Now, late donations are unlimited. In the final 18 days of last year’s general election campaign, contributions raised by statewide and legislative candidates (excluding the U.S. Senate) totaled more than $21 million, or 25% of all the funds raised during the election period.

An example occurred a few days before the election last Nov. 8, when Philip Morris U.S.A. gave $125,000 to GOP challenger Steve Kuykendall of Rancho Palos Verdes, who was locked in a close contest with Assemblywoman Betty Karnett, a Democrat. The funds paid for a series of last-minute campaign mailers and Kuykendall won a narrow victory.

For years, Republican and Democratic politicians have credited or condemned heavy, last-minute contributions for swinging the outcome of elections, particularly in close races where the target has no time to fend off surprise attacks made through the mail or on the airwaves.

The sneak attacks leave candidates of both parties equally exposed and vulnerable.

“The evil I’m trying to remedy is to constrain the last-minute sneak attacks,” said the bill’s author, Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), a master of campaign strategy and tactics.

Embraced by GOP leaders as one step toward mutual disarmament in the skyrocketing cost of campaigns, the bill--which would restrict contributions to a total of $1,000 from any one source during that period--was sent to the Assembly on a lopsided 36-2 vote. Lockyer conceded that his plan faces a murky future in the highly partisan Assembly, but voiced belief that a final version will be written by a two-house conference committee this summer, perhaps as part of a more comprehensive reform package.

A spokesman for Gov. Pete Wilson said the governor has not taken a position on the bill, which represents the first bipartisan campaign reform program of the two-year legislative session.

Senate elections consultants said it is not uncommon for candidates in close legislative races to receive 40% to 50% of their funds in the last two or three weeks of the campaign. In several contests last year, the level soared to 75%, they said.

State Sen. Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove), a wealthy businessman and major contributor to GOP legislative races, endorsed the bill, even though he said he was suspicious that Lockyer and the Democrats “are up to something.”

Hurtt said Republican candidates were outspent by Democrats by up to 10 to 1 in the final weeks of last year’s campaign. He indicated that if Democrats want to curtail their own firepower, that was fine with him and he voted yes.

“I don’t know who this tactically benefits,” Lockyer said.

GOP Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno told the Senate that in the absence of more comprehensive campaign reform that would win bipartisan support, Lockyer’s bill was “one step we can all agree on: We don’t like sneak attacks.”

Some senators complained that the bill did not impose limitations on independent expenditures made by special interests operating outside a candidate’s control.

Lockyer said it is very difficult to place legally acceptable contribution restrictions on independent political action committees. He also noted that his bill would not apply to late contributions by candidates to their own campaigns.