November’s election is in the rearview mirror, but many California lawmakers and unsuccessful candidates continue to live with reminders of costly campaigns. Lawmakers reported about $3.7 million in unpaid bills and personal loans, according to state filings reviewed by The Bee.
Debt retirement fundraisers around the Capitol have been common in recent weeks. Yet such fundraising has long troubled campaign-finance watchers.
Rather than helping a candidate’s re-election prospects, debt-retirement donations reduce a lawmaker’s potential liability to a campaign vendor or credit-card company. Other money goes into the candidate’s bank account to repay personal loans to their campaigns.
“You’re not giving to them so they run a competitive campaign. You’re not giving to them so they can get their message out,” campaign-law expert Jessica Levinson, vice president of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, said of campaign donors. “The purpose is, ‘Help me out. I need to retire my campaign debt.’ It’s much more of a specific goal.”
Robert M. Stern, the former top attorney at the state Fair Political Practices Commission who helped write the Political Reform Act, said donors to lawmakers “don’t really care where the money goes. They just want to have access to the officials.”
“But when you’re raising the money for yourself, it’s going into your own pocket. You’re more grateful to the donor,” he said.
Former Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, said it is “too simplistic a view” to link debt-retirement donations to any sense of obligation by a lawmaker. He finished his 2010 Assembly campaign more than $180,000 in debt and raised money to retire it during his two terms in office. Raising money is a regular part of the political process, he noted.
“There were people who gave me money to pay off (2010) debt. There were people who gave me money to run in 2012,” Dickinson said. “I didn’t think of them any differently.”
Campaigns accumulate debt for various reasons. Some candidates loan their campaigns money early on, up to a legal maximum of $100,000, to plump up fundraising totals and establish their campaign’s bona fides. In the closing weeks of a close race, many candidates cannot raise money fast enough and go into the red to stay competitive.
Other candidates and their consultants agree on “win bonuses” in return for lower payments up front; victory means an immediate five- or six-figure obligation. Some campaigns simply manage their money poorly.
After the past three elections cycles, lawmakers reported millions of dollars in debt on the books: $3.2 million after the 2010 election, $4.1 million after the 2012 election, and $3.7 million after November’s election. The higher total in 2012 likely reflected the costs of campaigning in newly drawn districts.
Campaign debt has had a role in only one recent political-ethics investigation despite the millions of dollars in loans and unpaid bills over the years.