Last year's Los Angeles city election set a record for independent expenditures by unions, corporations and individuals, for a total of $4.9 million spent outside the city's system of campaign finance limits, according to a study released Tuesday.
Organized labor accounted for 86% of the independent spending, including nearly $640,000 by the California Teacher's Assn. to support then-City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa for mayor, the city Ethics Commission review found.
And 96% of the independent expenditures occurred 30 days or less before the election.
Commission President Gil Garcetti and Vice President Bill Boyarsky, who were troubled by the study's findings, renewed a call for full public financing of election campaigns.
"You see a huge increase in the role of independent expenditures, and I think it's just the tip of the iceberg of what's coming," said Garcetti, the former Los Angeles County district attorney. "The only way to keep a level playing field is to have full public financing."
Boyarsky, a former Times editor, said a so-called clean money system under study by the City Council would help address the huge amount of special interest funding that is dwarfing the city's program of partially matching contributions.
"Just on the face of it," Boyarsky said of the report, "it shows that our system we have now is inadequate."
Garcetti said he would bring up the issue at the panel's next meeting, in March.
The 87-page study examined city elections in the 15 years since voters approved a package of campaign finance reforms, including one that provides candidates with public money if they agree to spending limits.
Currently, individual campaign contributors can give no more than $1,000 to candidates for citywide offices. But an individual or corporation can spend an unlimited amount -- known as an independent expenditure campaign -- to support a candidate, as long as it is not done at the request of the candidate.
Such campaigns often back candidates by directly sending out mail, purchasing television and radio ads and operating phone banks. For example, labor unions commonly pay to send mail or make phone calls to their members in support of a candidate.
The study found that such independent expenditures ballooned from $323,000 in 1993 to $3.2 million in 2001. The total in last year's elections, which featured races for mayor, city attorney, city controller and eight council seats, jumped a "dramatic" 54% from 2001, the study said.
