Political Contributions

Hugh Caperton, owner of a small coal mine from Slab Fork, W.Va., was driven into bankruptcy after he ran up against the huge A.T. Massey Coal Co., but got a measure of revenge when a jury awarded him $50 million in damages. But when Massey appealed to the West Virginia Supreme Court, Caperton thought it might mean trouble. Massey Chief Executive Don Blankenship had spent $3 million of his own money to help elect a new justice. "The deck was stacked against us," Caperton said.

The U.S. Supreme Court put elected judges on notice Monday that they must step aside from deciding cases involving big-money donors who helped them win their jobs. The decision comes after a decade in which corporate interests and trial lawyers have waged increasingly costly campaigns for 21 states' supreme court seats. Most are in the Great Lakes region or the South.

California Assemblywoman Diane Harkey accepted $16,600 in political contributions from real estate developers who had received loans from her husband's business, now under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The borrowers later failed to repay loans brokered by her husband's lending company, Point Center Financial Inc. of Aliso Viejo.

In the latest skirmish over Proposition 8, the state's ethics agency and Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown filed briefs in federal court this week challenging an attempt to change campaign finance disclosure laws. Supporters of the November ballot measure that banned gay marriage went to court earlier this month seeking to throw out a decades-old state law that requires the names and personal information of campaign contributors be made public.

It's become a kind of cliche to refer to Hollywood as the ATM of American politics. There's an important difference, however, between your bank's cash dispenser and the Industry: One really is a machine and the other is an intricate network of very sensitive people with egos that require a special sort of care and feeding. These days, even the most politically committed of those people seem to be grappling with fundraising fatigue.

His once-prominent political career is buried and the turmoil of his marriage is playing out in public. Now, John Edwards is facing a federal inquiry. The two-time Democratic presidential candidate acknowledged Sunday that investigators were assessing how he spent his campaign funds -- a subject that could carry his extramarital affair from the tabloids to the courtroom.

A pension board appointee of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa may have violated city law by accepting a campaign donation from a Los Angeles businessman whose client sought a $10-million investment from the board. Kelly Candaele, who served until three weeks ago on the board of the Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System, received $1,000 on Dec. 2 from Dan Weinstein, managing director of Wetherly Capital Group. That firm pitches investments to city and state pension boards.

The Supreme Court signaled Monday that it might be ready to give corporations a free-speech right to spend their money to elect or defeat favored candidates. In an unusual order, the justices said they were putting off until next term a decision over whether a politically charged film -- in this instance, "Hillary: The Movie" -- could be regulated as a type of campaign ad.

The City Ethics Commission issued a $2,000 fine Tuesday to a San Fernando Valley-based campaign committee that for the last year has been under investigation by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley. In a 3-0 vote, the commission fined Citizens for Dependable and Reliable Leadership, which spent more than $54,000 in the 2005 mayoral election, along with individuals affiliated with the committee -- three of them politicians.

Former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez broke no state laws when he spent tens of thousands of dollars in campaign funds on luxury travel around the world, gifts at high-end boutiques and meals at exclusive restaurants, the state's ethics watchdog has ruled. The Fair Political Practices Commission also has cleared the Los Angeles Democrat of any illegal activity in funneling nearly $300,000 from companies and organizations with business in the Capitol to a charity that spent it on events that helped him politically.