Half of Pasadena City Council Ignores Voices of the Community

GUEST OPINION

Pasadena City Hall Dome (Photo – Design Dept. ⒸColoradoBlvd.net)

Monday night, in a split vote, the Pasadena City Council rejected the recommendation of the Charter Reform Task Force to set reasonable limits on campaign contributions.

By Ellen Finkelpearl

Councilmembers Hampton (District 1), Jones (District 3), and Masuda (District 4), along with Mayor Gordo, voted NO on the proposed ordinance to limit contributions to $1,000 per contributor for City Council candidates and to $2,500 per contributor for Mayoral candidates. This means that the state mandated limit of $5,500 per contributor stands and that candidates for offices in our City are subject to the same limits on contributions as someone running for a state-wide office. Not only has the Council rejected the recommendation of the Task Force that they themselves appointed, but they have ignored the persistent voices of the community calling for reasonable limits.

The four members who did support bringing this issue to the voters and who voted in support of the ordinance were: Councilmembers Lyon, Madison, Rivas, and Williams.

The arguments of Mayor Gordo and his allies that contribution limits favor incumbents and wealthy candidates, and that they are standing up for the “little guy,” are specious. Mayor Gordo repeatedly argued that if limits are set, “Independent Expenditures (IE’s)” would simply increase. (IE’s are defined as financial support for a candidate or issue that is not directly connected to the candidate or issue.) Because of a United States Supreme Court ruling, neither this sort of indirect contribution nor a candidate self-funding a campaign can be limited by law.

The Pasadena Charter Reform Task Force conducted a deep study of the effects of IE’s on races in various comparable California cities and found that there was zero evidence of IE’s increasing as contribution limits were set. The councilmembers who voted to reject the very reasonable limits on campaign contributions must stop pretending that they are the champions of the underdogs. They are not.