EDITORIAL WHOSE DIRTY TRICKS? SUDDENLY, THE CITY COUNCIL CARES ABOUT TRUTH IN POLITICAL ADVERTISING.

THE charges are serious: In order to win support for a controversial measure, campaign strategists make misleading statements to trick voters into thinking the measure they are supporting is the exact opposite of what they want.

City Council members are livid about these dirty tricks -- at least now that the target is their very own ``living-wage'' ordinance for hotel workers near Los Angeles International Airport.

They know from recent experience that sleazy misinformation campaigns actually work. Theirs did.

Evidently comfortable with being hypocrites, City Council President Eric Garcetti, Councilwoman Janice Hahn and Councilman Bill Rosendahl held a press conference to denounce rumors that a few signature gatherers gave bad information to deceive people into signing an anti-living-wage petition.

The City Council adopted the ordinance Nov. 23 to require hotels near LAX to pay a higher minimum wage to workers than the state requires. The petition campaign, backed by the hotels affected, is aimed at getting a referendum on the March ballot.

``Truth should not be a casualty in a democracy,'' Rosendahl said with great solemnity.

We wholeheartedly agree. But where was this foot-stomping and democracy-protecting attitude just a few weeks earlier when the council engaged in a far more reprehensible effort to mislead the public?

Back in October, the Measure R campaign used the same kind of chicanery to dupe voters into thinking they were cleaning up corruption at City Hall and limiting the number of terms council members could serve.

Of course, Measure R did nothing about corruption, and in fact it increased allowable council terms from two to three.

The crucial difference between the two cases, of course, is that Measure R benefited the council, and the effort against the living-wage ordinance benefits the public.

To be sure, the signature gatherers ought not be misleading people to sign their petition. Nor should campaign advertisements mislead people to vote for their measure.

But until the City Council members decide to support a reform that outlaws all dirty tricks -- including their own -- and sets standards for truth in political advertising, they ought to keep their outrage to themselves.