A couple of Orange County cities are increasing limits on how much a person can financially donate to the political election campaigns of their preferred candidates ahead of the November 2024 election.
And officials in one of the smallest cities in the county – Stanton – moved the opposite direction, directing staff to look at reducing the campaign contribution limit.
Officials there are also looking into a significant overhaul in campaign finance rules, one that could potentially infuse taxpayer dollars into the election cycle in an effort to curb pay-to-play politics.
The changes come after a corruption scandal broke out in Anaheim, where FBI agents in sworn affidavits and city hired independent investigators in a corruption report last year accused Disneyland resort interests of having outsized influence over city hall.
Orange City Council members voted 6-1 this month to increase the campaign contribution limits for regular elections from $1,000 per contributor to $1,500.
Councilwoman Ana Gutierrez was the dissenting vote, but didn’t say why she was against the increase at the meeting.
Councilman Jon Dumitru said even with the increase, Orange still remains a city that has one of the lower limits for campaign contributions in Orange County and that it costs a lot of money to run for office.
“Most of the cities in the county now are above $3,000 per election cycle so I don’t think it’s unreasonable with costs,” he said at the May 14 city council meeting.
Shirley Grindle, who authored the county’s own campaign finance ordinance in 1978, said in the 2022 election in Orange that 66% of contributions to candidates were under $250 and 10% were $1,000.
“You’re probably going to increase the limit today but I don’t think it is going to increase the number of large contributions you get from citizens, you will increase the ones that come from the special interests – the developers, the lobbyists, the contractors,” Grindle said at the May 14 council meeting to elected officials.
She said the city should increase the contribution limit for candidates running in citywide elections like the mayor seat to $1,200 while the contribution limits for council seats should not go up.
Councilman Denis Bilodeau said that the Levine Act – a statewide campaign finance law – stops money from influencing policy making on the dais.
The law requires city council members to recuse themself from a vote that impacts donors who have contributed $250 or more to their campaign in the last 12 months.
Officials also voted 4-3 to remove a ban on candidate committees transferring money to the committees of other candidates.
Bilodeau said Orange is one of only three municipalities in Orange County – including Anaheim – that has such a ban and that it doesn’t work.
“In Anaheim, clearly, it didn’t do anything to prohibit corruption, the mayor is yet to be sentenced to prison so it doesn’t have the intended result,” he said.
Bilodeau also said the city should implement the same rules the state has imposed.
“You shouldn’t have to hire a professional treasurer and a lawyer to run for public office,” he said. “It’s absurd that I can make a contribution to my State Assemblyman out of my candidate committee, but he can’t make one to me.”
“It’s a one way deal.”
Mayor Dan Slater, Councilwoman Arianna Barrios and Gutierrez were the dissenting votes.
“Just because we’re one of the few and only people in the entire world that has this does not make us wrong, and does not make it something that we shouldn’t do,” Barrios said.
Grindle said removing the ban would create a loophole to funnel money to candidates and avoid the contribution limits.
Dumitru and Bilodeau said removing the ban would keep people from donating to political action committees and create more transparency.
At the same meeting, council members voted unanimously on an ordinance that would impose a $25 fee each time a candidate running in local elections files nomination papers.
The votes took place the same night officials in Orange debated how to address a catastrophic $19 million budget deficit and floated the idea of a sales tax increase.
[Read: City of Orange Eyes a Sales Tax Increase While Facing Massive Budget Deficit]
They’re not the only ones increasing campaign contribution limits.
In March, Laguna Beach officials voted to increase their campaign contribution limit from $440 per contributor to $520.
[Read: Laguna Beach Raises Campaign Contribution Limits]
Earlier this month, officials in the coastal city voted unanimously on an ordinance that automatically adjusts donation limits due to inflation following every election cycle permanently.
Overhauling Campaign Finance Rules After a Scandal
The changes are happening after allegations of a culture of pay to play politics in OC’s largest city.
Federal agents found that former Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu tried to ram through the now canned Angel Stadium land sale for a $1 million in campaign support from ball club executives.
Sidhu resigned in 2022 and pleaded guilty to a series of federal charges, including lying to investigators about trying to ram the stadium deal through.
In the fallout of the corruption scandal, Anaheim officials decided to require candidates to repay their debt within a year from the election, as well as limit personal campaign loans to $100,000 per election as part of their reforms.
[Read: Anaheim Officials Change How Political Candidates Fundraise in Wake of Corruption Scandal]
Anaheim isn’t the only one to look at changes in the wake of the corruption scandal.
It’s sparked reform debates over campaign finance rules as well as tightening lobbyist regulations across OC – with discussions even stretching as far south as San Diego.
Earlier this year, officials in Stanton – one of the smallest cities in the county – voted unanimously to direct staff to look into a $1,000 limit on campaign contributions.
They also directed staff to conduct research on publicly funded elections – laying the groundwork to potentially become the first city OC to use taxpayer dollars to help finance political campaigns.
[Read: Will Stanton Switch to Publicly Funded Elections?]
In publicly financed elections, candidates who raise money from residents generally receive a match of five times what they raised or a lump sum of $20,000 from the city’s budget.
Proponents argue that this method of funding election campaigns improve public trust and diminish the influence campaign contributors have on policy.
Some critics worry that it might increase costs for taxpayers and the misuse of public funds.
This type of election funding is something the nonprofit, Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development, pushed for in Anaheim during the wake of the corruption scandal.
But officials there have not yet had a discussion about publicly funded elections.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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