Election Laws

Voters on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to allow Panama's presidents to seek reelection, in what observers said was a stinging defeat for the incumbent, Ernesto Perez Balladares. With 82% of the ballots counted, 62.5% were against lifting the constitutional prohibition on consecutive terms for presidents. The vote was seen as a rejection of the free-market reforms of Perez Balladares and his ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD.

After steadfastly resisting such a step for more than a year, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno is moving toward recommending the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate allegations of illegal fund-raising on behalf of President Clinton's reelection, according to government officials. Reno is reviewing the role of Harold M.

The state Fair Political Practices Commission has accused Councilman Fred Cressel of eight counts of failing to submit election campaign disclosure statements on time. The commission's complaint involves documents listing campaign contributions that Cressel was required to submit under California's Political Reform Act when he ran for City Council in 1995 and then for mayor, unsuccessfully, last year. Cressel is accused of failing to submit two disclosure statements and filing six others late.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno refused Tuesday to give congressional investigators two memorandums from top law enforcement officials that recommend the naming of an independent counsel to look into campaign fund-raising abuses--even as GOP lawmakers turned up the heat by threatening to cite her with contempt of Congress. Called before a House oversight committee Tuesday, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, Assistant U.S. Atty. Charles G. LaBella and FBI Special Agent James V.

Bob Raymond is a registered Republican, has been for 50 years. He joined the GOP just after World War II, when a buddy advised him that Republicans "have all the money and all the beautiful women." Raymond has no desire to become a Democrat, but there have been times, in primaries past, when the Sacramento retiree didn't like the choices the Grand Old Party served up.

A group of residents said Tuesday they had filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission accusing two City Council members and an unsuccessful council candidate of misconduct in recent election campaigns. The complaint alleges that a negative campaign mailer was paid for with money funneled through a Northridge political action committee in order to conceal the source of the funds.

The Senate Republican majority began its election-year drive to kill campaign finance reform Monday, confident that the public will neither notice nor care whether Congress leaves election laws unchanged, despite two years of revelations of fund-raising improprieties by both parties. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) offered as the GOP's sole prescription a measure to restrict the use of union dues for political purposes.

Prosecutors asked a federal judge Friday to sentence Rep. Jay C. Kim (R-Diamond Bar) to jail for accepting more than $250,000 in illegal corporate and foreign campaign contributions. In a strongly worded sentencing memorandum, the prosecution attacked the three-term congressman for once characterizing U.S. election laws as "stupid" and comparing violations to "jaywalking." They suggested that he stole his first election, in 1992, by resorting to illegal spending.

Contradicting a previous account of his campaign strategy, Los Angeles County sheriff candidate Lee Baca on Tuesday denied ever offering incumbent Sherman Block inducements to step aside before the June election. Meeting with a dozen reporters at his campaign headquarters, Baca said he never offered Block a deal to quit the race, although, as reported in Tuesday's Times, he earlier had described in some detail his efforts to strike such a bargain.

Again rejecting an outside investigation of Democratic fund-raising practices, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno told a federal court Monday that there are no grounds for an independent counsel to examine the roles of President Clinton or Vice President Al Gore in the 1996 election campaign.