COMMENTARY: SPECIAL-INTEREST SPENDING HURTS NEWHALL COUNTY WATER DISTRICT.

Byline: Lynne Plambeck

Can Proposition 208, the campaign reform initiative passed by the voters last year, really curb special spending? The recent outcome of the Newhall County Water District race in the Santa Clarita Valley answers this question with a resounding no!

Out of 285 seats statewide, only nine candidates did not agree to abide by voluntary campaign spending limits. Three of those were challenges to hard-working, four-year incumbents in this small water district. They were also the only candidates statewide to exceed these limits.

Proposition 208 was supposed to promote a carrot-and-stick-type approach to campaign limit compliance. Candidates who did not agree to comply were limited to receiving $100 donations. Local jurisdictions could also lower the disclosure limit, but the district was unaware of this section and did not enact it. This had the unintended effect of encouraging donations that did not have to be disclosed. Why donate $100 and disclose when you can donate $99 and not disclose?

The result in the Newhall County Water District race was that some of the $33,000 was donated in $99 increments to candidates not agreeing to the spending limits. The sources of such an enormous amount of money for this tiny race were not required to be made available for public scrutiny.

Another carrot for compliance was to be a symbol by the names of candidates agreeing to spending limits. One might argue that the tiny, hard-to-see diamonds used by the county registrar-recorder to designate campaign reform compliance were not the ``prominent'' indicators called for by Proposition 208. But in this election, a printing error was made. The county indicated all candidates had complied and later corrected this error by sending out new ballots with a cover letter stating which candidates had complied and which had not. How could the voters have missed this?

As of the October reporting period, the incumbents were being outspent by special-interest funding at a rate of 6-to-1. The predictable glossy ``hit pieces'' arrived. Paid phone bankers called voters in the district as many as five times each. Misinformation about the district and the incumbents ranging from distorted to outright slanderous was repeated continuously. It was a tidal wave of negativism that drowned the simple, positive campaign of accomplishments used by the incumbents.

Of course big money, fancy packaging and distortions won again. The voters seemed not to care about the motives or integrity of the candidates, nor did they care about whether they had complied with campaign reform and voluntary limits.

But the biggest loser in this race was perhaps the Newhall County Water District itself. This spunky little district, which formulated the first groundwater management plan for the Santa Clarita Valley to at least begin addressing the equitable distribution and care of its increasingly scarce resource, suffered a major and undeserved attack on its public image. My heart goes out to its employees and the directors who would have worked so hard to provide the community a safe and sustainable water supply. They have performed their daily duties faithfully and responsibly, and received only negativism for their efforts.

The current political system that continues to reward special-interest spending, negative polemics and false statements with victory at the ballot box is not serving our community well. It is not serving our society or our democracy well. We must find an answer to campaign reform that really works before it is too late.