Keeping the FPPC’s teeth

It was the loophole big enough to fly a chartered jet through: A Sacramento politician would indulge in luxury international travel, and the tab would be picked up by a nonprofit organization funneling the anonymous (to the public) donations of big-moneyed players with legislation to push or thwart in the Capitol. No limits, limited disclosure. High-flying elected officials, stung by criticism, would reply indignantly that being wined, dined, housed and expressed around the globe courtesy of favor-seeking gift-givers was a perfectly natural way for them to attend to the people’s business.

This and similar bad behavior has been curbed to a degree by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, especially under the leadership of its chairman of the last three years, Ross Johnson. At the final meeting before Johnson’s April 30 resignation, the commission toughened up its rules to make it harder for contributors to hide behind groups such as the California State Protocol Foundation, which collected unlimited donations to underwrite Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s globetrotting ways.

If the new regulations have a certain deja vu quality, that’s because the FPPC has previously closed different parts of the same loophole. That’s the way it has to be in the rulemaking world; it’s never enough to simply make a sweeping pronouncement against abusing disclosure rules. Regulators must fine tune and redefine. They produce rules that may look hyper-technical or obscure when taken individually but that, taken together, form part of a badly needed regimen of public disclosure and transparency.

During Johnson’s tenure, for example, politicians who previously declared that they spent donated money on legitimate political, governmental or legislative purposes, rather than for personal use, were required to identify what those purposes were. There are likewise tighter controls now on money donated to legal defense funds (contributions really must be used for legal defense) and to ballot measure committees controlled by a politician (it really must be used for ballot measures).

As a Republican lawmaker from Orange County, Johnson had a keen interest in political reform, but he tended to see things from a politician’s perspective. That may have given Schwarzenegger and current legislators a certain comfort, knowing that they were to be scrutinized by one of their own. But Johnson more than rose to the occasion, showing that a vigorous political and campaign watchdog could bare its teeth and, occasionally, bite. Now that the governor’s days in office are numbered, he would do minimal damage to himself — and perform a great service to the public — by appointing someone of Johnson’s caliber as the next chairman.