Disclosure flaw: the perils of campaign-finance disclosure laws.

• Author: Doherty, Brian

Politics is a realm of unintended consequences. In California, a wave of post-Watergate revulsion with arrogant, corrupt politicians led to the passage of the Political Reform Act in 1974. That law slapped strict campaign-finance disclosure requirements on state political campaigns. Twenty years later, the same law is being used to strike at private citizens who attempted to discipline a powerful politician they considered arrogant and corrupt. The results raise worrisome questions about the possible abuses of even the seemingly most innocuous regulations on citizens' participation in politics.

In October 1995, California's Fair Political Practices Commission, charged with enforcing the PRA, levied the largest fine in its history, $808,000, against Southern Californians Russell Howard and Steve Cicero. They had been the president and treasurer, respectively, of Californians Against Corruption, a now-dormant group of political gadflies that was part of a coalition dedicated to unseating California Democratic state Sen. David Roberti. Roberti, a 23-year Senate veteran, had been Senate president pro tem for 13 years. The recall coalition got its new election in April 1994, collecting more than twice the necessary 20,670 signatures.

But in doing so, CAC didn't keep up with the complicated paperwork requirements the PRA demands. Their hefty fine is mostly for hundreds of counts of not reporting the occupation, employer, and address of people who donated more than $100 to the recall cause.

Despite admittedly not filling out the proper forms at the proper times, a weary Howard insists, as the list of charges is read to him, that the FPPC has at its disposal all the information it wants. "They have a copy of every check we ever received, and the vast majority have those addresses on the check," he says. "My life should be ruined because I didn't fill out the proper forms in triplicate?"

While CAC asked all contributors to fill out employer and occupation information with their contribution, the vast majority simply didn't, Cicero says. Gary Huckaby, an FPPC spokesman, says it's the organization's legal responsibility to collect that information or not accept the money.

The PRA was one part of a national wave of post-Watergate state and federal campaign-finance reform law. The motives and goals of such laws seem pure and sensible: to get a public handle on the possible secret governmental influence of big money interests. But applying such a law to...