Every time we present our initiative to an audience, we get questions about why we didn't include some provision or another. These are always good questions, but in all cases we had good reasons for not including certain things.

Overall Goals

Before we get to specific items, you should understand the general guidelines under which we worked. In drafting our initiative, we set out to accomplish the following goals:

• To decrease the influence of moneyed special interests.
• To increase the influence of individual citizens.
• To "level the playing field" so that challengers can effectively compete with incumbents.

Now we certainly don't believe that our initiative will solve every problem in our political system or put an end to every abuse. What we do believe is that we can put in place a system in which honest people can run for political office and effectively compete without selling their souls to the special interests.

Overall Constraints

There are certain legal and practical constraints that apply to initiatives. From the beginning we agreed that our initiative had to fulfill certain requirements. These were:

Effectiveness

There's no point in going to all this trouble if the end result isn't going to solve the problem and fulfill the goals outlined above.

Constitutionality

None of us, and no one in the general public with whom we spoke, had any desire to see yet another California initiative become just a series of court cases. We agreed that all major provisions of the initiative had to be constitutionally sound, as demonstrated by having withstood a court challenge or being successfully implemented for some time in another state.

Cost Neutrality

California voters have demonstrated that they will reject any initiative that carries a substantial cost. While some minor costs are acceptable, you can't get carried away.

Simplicity

If you can't explain your initiative to the voters in terms that they will understand, they will reject it.

Most of the items that were not included in the initiative were rejected for one or more of the above reasons.

Specific Provisions Not Included and Why

Lower Contribution Limits

Some people out there favor putting a very severe limit on the size of allowable contributions (such as $100 for a state office). We found two problems with this, practical and constitutional.

First, as a practical consideration, candidates (especially challengers) need to be able to raise enough money to adequately inform the voters about their positions. If contribution limits are set too low, only incumbents and the very rich would ever be able to win elections. Clearly this is not what we want. Exactly where the optimal contribution limit lies is a judgment call. We chose $250 for legislative races because in other states this is the lowest limit that has been proven to be effective without cutting into the competitiveness of challengers.

Second, there is the question of constitutionality. The US Supreme Court has ruled that "corruption or the appearance of corruption" is the only valid reason to limit a person's political contributions and thus infringe on this form of free speech. Contribution limits that go beyond this tend to get ruled unconstitutional.

In recent years, four states have attempted to impose $100 contribution limits on candidates for state office or on political committees. A final decision has been reached in two cases. In one other the court has issued a preliminary ruling against the $100 limits.

In Minnesota, the courts struck down a campaign law provision which limited individual contributions to political committees to $100, saying that this violated First Amendment free speech rights because the limit was too low to permit "meaningful participation in protected political speech." (Day v. Holahan)

In Missouri, the courts struck down $100 contribution limits to candidates, stating that the limits were an unconstitutional restriction on freedoms of expression and association. (Carver v. Nixon)

In Kentucky, the courts also issued a preliminary injunction against $100 contribution limits, saying that the limits were too low to permit meaningful communication on political issues. (Wilkinson v. Jones)

In Oregon, a case has been filed against an initiative that imposed $100 contribution limits on candidates for state senator and state representative. No decision has yet been rendered. (Vannatta v. Keisling)

In short, we feel that $100 contribution limits are a quick path to a court challenge which we would likely lose. We feel comfortable with our $250 contribution limits for legislative races because such limits have been in place for several state legislative elections in other states.

In-District Contribution Requirements

A currently popular suggestion is that we should only allow those to contribute who live within the district being represented. A somewhat milder form of this is to limit out-of-district contributions to a certain percentage of total contributions. Although this raises several practical concerns, the major problem with this provision is its questionable constitutionality.

This provision would eliminate (or strictly limit in its milder form) a person's "protected political speech" based solely on where that person lived. This is a potential violation of that person's freedom of speech, freedom of association, and equal protection under the law. In Oregon, an initiative that imposed an in-district contribution requirementwas declared unconstitutional as a violation of free speech rights. (Vannatta v. Keisling)

Because most of the out-of-district contributions that concern people come from PACs, lobbyists, and corporations, we found it just as effective to limit contributions from these groups directly. This will accomplish the same goal and doesn't raise the problem of unconstitutionality.

Public Financing

Yes, we know that a lot of you out there like the idea of public financing. A lot of us like it too. However, in the current political and fiscal climate, most voters in California do not like it. Our survey data showed very quickly that an initiative that contained public financing of candidates would lose badly at the polls.

The major use of public financing in campaign finance laws is to provide an incentive to encourage candidates to accept spending limits. Our initiative will accomplish the same thing by providing a different incentive - increased contribution limits - for candidates who accept spending limits. We feel that this is just as effective and avoids both the costs and the stigma associated with public financing.

We have included public support of candidates in our initiative. We chose to fund the distribution of candidate information through the California Ballot Information Pamphlet, which goes to every registered voter, rather than fund candidates directly. Unlike traditional public financing, this is widely supported by the voters and provides a substantial incentive to participating candidates.

Free Media Time for Candidates

We hear about this more than any other item, but it is out of our hands. The public airwaves are regulated by the FCC at the federal level. This falls outside the jurisdiction of a state initiative. If you support this, talk to your Congressional representatives.

Regulation of Lobbyists

The current attempts to implement lobbyist regulations and a gift ban at the federal level have led to the call to do something similar in California. Actually, California already has fairly strong lobbyist gift rules. Lobbyists can give only items valued up to $10 per month and must report quaterly the legislation they are working on, whom they are working for and how much they are being paid.

While we strongly support efforts,to further regulate lobbyists, we cannot include them in our initiative. Because of the single subject requirement, we can only regulate lobbyist behavior that is directly associated with election campaigns and contributions. More comprehensive lobbyist regulation will have to wait until our next initiative.