November 28, 2007

Independent spending helps shape tight Assembly contest

With the special election less than two weeks away, the Democratic primary showdown between Warren Furutani and Mike Gipson for state Assembly is heating up.

And in yet another legislative battle, late independent expenditures threaten to top the spending of the candidates' own campaigns for the Los Angeles-area seat.

A labor-backed independent expenditure (IE) account, funded largely by the State Council of Service Employees, has spent more than $300,000 in mailers, polling and voter contact to support Furutani.

A largely corporate-backed IE has come to the aid of Gipson, who works as a union organizer for the United Teachers Los Angeles, spending almost $60,000 in the past week.

The candidates themselves have raised about $500,000 between them, with Furutani leading Gipson with more than $350,000 raised.

While donations to the candidates are capped, money streaming into independent expenditure campaigns, which by law can’t coordinate with the candidates, is limitless.

So far all the reported independent spending has been positive in nature.

But the campaign is hardly mud free. A Gipson mailer accuses Furutani of using a “chauffeur” when he served on the Los Angeles Unified school board in the early 1990s.

And there have been calls in the district, according to a Long Beach Press-Telegram report, insinuating a “direct link” between Gipson, a Carson City Council member, and imprisoned former Mayor Daryl Sweeney.

“That’s one of the more outrageous examples of abuse of the phone system,” said Richie Ross, an adviser to the Gipson campaign. The Furutani campaign has said it did not pay for the call and no group has claimed ownership.

“It’s going to be some low-level low life,” added Ross. “I don’t think it’s going to be a main line group.”

The Furutani campaign, for its part, is attacking Gipson for the links of the independent expenditure campaign supporting him to the tobacco industry. The independent committee has received $40,000 from Philip Morris and $25,000 from U.S. Tobacco. (The IE funds are from the same committee, which received a $1 million donation from Intuit and spent $1 million opposing state Controller John Chiang’s election in 2006.)

“Once again, big tobacco is trying to buy a state legislative seat in California,” said Parke Skelton, a Furutani consultant, in a statement.

Furutani, a consultant to Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and a Los Angeles Community College board member, also has the backing of the influential Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Labor’s support will be critical in the race, Skelton said in an interview, because polls show the race to be a toss up, with the two Democratic candidates within percentage points of each other.

With a December special election and nothing else on the ballot, turnout is expected to be abysmal.

“By that count the candidate that is turning out the bodies should win. I have confident that should be us,” Skelton said.

Of course, a big IE push could change of the course of the race.

Former Assemblywoman Laura Richardson, D-Long Beach, whose seat the Democrats hope to fill, won election to Congress earlier this year in a race defined by large independent spending.

Richardson was backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending by the Los Angeles labor federation, while her opponent received a six-figure boost from the Morongo Band of Mission Indians.

Skelton said the way campaigns work now, he expects “a ton of crap (to get) dumped in the last few days.”

Ross said he was confident that “generally voters sort their way through this stuff.”

“IEs are here to stay,” he said. “That comes with the First Amendment, and it is what it is.”

The winner of the Democratic primary, set for Dec. 11, in the heavily Democratic district is expected to coast through the Feb. 5 runoff election.

Posted by Shane Goldmacher on November 28, 2007 1:51 PM