Nearly 40 years ago, a majority of California voters approved Proposition 68, a campaign finance reform measure intended to stem the heavy flow of special-interest money into political campaigns.
The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board at the time endorsed the measure, saying, “Proposition 68 may be California’s last best hope for years to restrain the corrupting influence of huge amounts of campaign funds in Sacramento.” And this was before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling!
The measure, supported by good-government groups, placed spending limits on state legislative campaigns and established modest public funding for them.
Golden State is a member-supported publication. If you enjoy what you’re reading, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription and support independent, home-grown journalism.
But it never became law. That’s because a slightly larger majority of California voters approved a competing measure, Proposition 73. That citizen's initiative, put on the ballot with the help of the same special-interest money that Proposition 68 was trying to curb, also included campaign spending limits. But crucially, it banned public campaign financing for both state and local government races. It had more votes, and per state law it trumped Proposition 68.
Since then, courts lifted the ban for the state’s charter cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. But now it’s time – way past time, as it were – to undo that unwise prohibition entirely.
That is what Proposition 4 on the Nov. 3 state ballot would do, along with laying out some basic standards that government bodies must follow if they opt to use public campaign financing systems. The standards include requirements that candidates accept spending caps and matching funds not be used for fines or legal defense.
Josh Gohlke
What Proposition 4 does not do is require the state or any local government to use public campaign financing; it simply undoes the state ban – the only such one in the nation. Local governments may opt to, or not. In fact, of the state’s 126 charter cities, only five have chosen to use public financing for political candidates.
“We've seen examples of it working really well,” said Trent Lange, executive director of California Clean Money Action Fund, which was one of the groups that lobbied the Legislature for years to get Proposition 4 on the ballot. “[New York Mayor] Zohran Mamdani is just the most recent example. He wasn't a candidate who had the money to compete with the establishment candidates, but he used the 8:1 matching fund system to get enough to help him get his message out. And he was able to prevail despite over $40 million in Super PAC ads by billionaires against him.”
Golden State staff
The core idea behind public campaign financing is to supply matching funds to qualified political candidates who can show they have substantial support but lack big donors. Los Angeles’ public financing system provides a 6:1 match and likely helped Karen Bass win the mayor’s race in 2022 against her wealthy challenger, shopping-mall developer Rick Caruso.
There are similar stories in every place with public campaign financing, Lange said. Candidates with plenty of support but not much funding get an infusion of cash to give them a fighting chance in a race with candidates supported by wealthy interests, so that “elections are about ideas, not money.”
Supporting Proposition 4 is a large coalition of organizations devoted to more accountable government, including the League of Women Voters and California Common Cause. The main opponents are taxpayer groups that object to using public money on political campaigns.
Deanne Stillman
That’s the reason Dan Schnur, a political analyst and former chair of the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission, opposes the measure. “I’d rather see taxpayer money spent on teachers and healthcare and public safety than on nasty campaign commercials,” Schnur told me.
I would prefer that myself, especially in California, where local governments are often starved for revenue thanks to another 20th-century ballot measure, Proposition 13. But in a world where corporations and wealthy people are able to spend millions – or billions! – getting their preferred candidate elected, there doesn’t seem to be a better way to level the playing field.
In any case, I would prefer that decision be made by local governments and their residents. Not voters from the last century.
