NEWS STATEMENT

Jim Mangia, President
Coalition for Political Reform

April 5, 2000

The Democratic and Republican parties have spent millions of dollars in an illegal and unreported attempt to corrupt the Los Angeles mayoral race. Ironically, they have violated their own state campaign finance laws in addition to blatantly disregarding local jurisdiction and city ethics laws.
It is so grossly unfair to Los Angeles voters, that we will ask the city's Elections Division to postpone the election on Tuesday. Any vote cast at this point would be tainted with fraud. To allow the election to continue after these gross violations of city, state and federal law would create a debacle much worse than the situation we have witnessed in the recent presidential election in Florida.

If the Elections Division does not agree we will immediately seek injunctive relief from the courts to cancel the mayoral election on Tuesday; freeze all assets of the state Democratic and Republican parties so no further illegal spending can take place pending a full inquiry by the Ethics Commission; and order a full investigation of the conspiracy of the Villaraigosa and Soboroff campaigns to defraud the voting public through their knowledge of these illegal activities by the political parties.

The irony of this whole situation is that Antonio Villarigosa, who was Assembly Speaker and John Burton, leader in the State Senate wrote Proposition 34, a phony reform initiative, to gut and destroy proposition 208 which was approved by over 60% of California voters. The actions of the state political parties violate Proposition 34 in two ways. Firstly, federal law, numerous federal cases, the Federal Elections Commission, and city ethics law all differentiate between a political party and an organization. So does Proposition 34. An organization is defined as a union or groups like the National Organization for Women or Americans for Democratic Action. Under Proposition 34, these organizations can communicate with their members without reporting the source of their income and without concern for city spending and contribution limits. While I strongly disagree with this position, it is nonetheless part of the state government code at this time. However, in 12 separate and distinct sections of this law it defines and differentiates the activities of political parties and political party committees. Separately and distinctly, Section 85312 defines the role of
organizations.

Secondly, Section 85703 specifically states that, "Nothing in this act shall nullify contribution limitations or prohibitions of any local jurisdiction that apply to elections for local elective office."

The Democratic and Republican parties have not "exploited a loophole," as they're currently claiming. They have deliberately attempted to steal the Los Angeles mayoral election, taint and transform a nonpartisan race into a partisan election, and corrupt the voting process. They have conspired to break the law and it must not go unpunished. The Coalition for Political
Reform will see that they are brought to justice.