Special Interest Groups

Republican congressional contender Tom McClintock is benefiting from a surge of eleventh-hour campaign donations by special-interest groups, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Assemblyman McClintock's campaign took in at least $42,000 in the past two weeks, the reports said. Of that, $27,500--or 65%--came from groups representing beer wholesalers, realtors, chiropractors, insurance interests, gun owners and others. By comparison, his Democratic rival, Anthony C.

Among the many proposals to raise taxes and cut and reallocate government spending to regain our country's economic health, one of the most sensitive is decreasing the tax deductibility of charitable contributions. The independent Congressional Budget Office recently reviewed 11 options for revising the income tax treatment of charitable giving, and it grouped them into four categories. All establish a floor below which contributions would not be deductible. One proposal retained tax deductibility only for donations exceeding $1,000 per couple or, alternatively, 2% of a person's adjusted gross income.

Timber interests at odds with environmentalists threaten to boycott Stroh's beer unless the brewer withdraws funding for an Audubon Society television program. Environmentalists say they will boycott Hawaiian-grown macadamia nuts, pineapples, coffee and sugar unless a geothermal project in a rain forest on the Big Island is scrapped. Moralists prod advertisers to withdraw support for prime-time TV shows deemed overly violent, profane or sexy.

Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to abandon the use of budget earmarks that direct money to favored projects, setting up an unusual alliance with the White House and exerting pressure on reluctant Democratic lawmakers to follow suit. The vote by the GOP caucus for a two-year moratorium on earmarks is not binding on its members, but it provided an early example of the influence of the conservative "tea party" movement after the midterm election. House Republicans are expected to take a similar step Thursday.

In the last hurrah for controversial speaking fees from special-interest groups, San Fernando Valley-area congressmen accepted a total of $172,473 in honorariums as well as dozens of expense-paid trips to such destinations as Palm Springs and Honolulu last year, according to 1990 financial disclosure reports. Leading the way was Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), who received $70,123 in honorariums.

Almost without letup, the phone calls pour into Ilisa Halpern's headset as she sits in the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), typing the caller's name, address and comments onto a computer screen. From a Sonoma woman upset about President Clinton's economic plan: "Very definitely not support it. President is pathological liar. Can't fool all of the people. Tired of listening to all of the rhetoric. Feinstein also a radical."

In the two years between leaving the U.S. Senate and announcing his candidacy for president, Democrat Bill Bradley earned more than $2.5 million in speaking fees, much of it from special-interest groups, according to his income tax returns and financial disclosure statement released Monday. Bradley, who did not seek reelection to the Senate in 1996, reported earning $2.7 million for speeches in 1997 and 1998, the statements indicated.

State Sen. Gary K. Hart warned Cal State University officials Thursday that they should move quickly to reach agreement on a site for a new university campus in the county or lose the state funds already appropriated to buy the land. Addressing the 30-member Cal State Site Selection Committee and the 50 people in the audience at a meeting in Oxnard, Hart said $7 million to buy a site somewhere in the county had been included in the new state budget signed Tuesday by Gov. George Deukmejian.

Legislative leaders and committee chairmen who played an influential role in deciding the fate of legislation last year received thousands of dollars apiece in outside income and gifts from special-interest groups affected by their decisions.

City Council candidate Harold Lindamood was surprised when he received the detailed questionnaires asking his opinions on abortion. It was not likely that topic would be tucked into the Cypress City Council agenda, among trash fee hikes and weed abatement. Why would someone even ask, he wondered. "They don't have anything to do with city elections," said Lindamood, a test pilot making his first try at elected office. "Basically I put them in a pile. . . . I didn't fill them out."

Fifteen special interest groups including casino operators, drug firms and unions for teachers and public employees spent more than $1 billion in the last decade trying to influence California voters and officials, the state's political watchdog agency reported Wednesday. The money from the top 15 spenders went to lobbying, contributions to state politicians, and campaigns for ballot measures that advanced the groups' agendas, according to the report by the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

On the face of it, nobody should find anything objectionable to the Taxpayers Right to Vote Act, a proposed initiative now awaiting certification to go on the state ballot. The measure would require a two-thirds vote by residents of a municipality to approve certain public expenditures or borrowings. It's cast as the most virtuous of good-government propositions. Or as Greg Larsen, head of the initiative's campaign committee, puts it, "Why shouldn't the people who are going to pay the bill have the right to vote on that?"

Lawmakers want voters to borrow $11 billion next year to keep California supplied with clean water, but more than $1 billion of the money is earmarked for projects that have little or nothing to do with quenching the state's thirst. The bond proposal includes funding for bike paths, museums, visitor centers, tree planting, economic development and the purchase of property from land speculators and oil companies -- all in the districts of lawmakers whose key votes helped it pass the Legislature.

The uphill fight for a slate of budget measures on the May 19 ballot is being financed largely by alcohol and tobacco firms, oil companies, sports teams and Hollywood studios that could be hit by higher taxes if voters reject the $23-billion special election proposals. Oil and energy companies have given more than $1.1 million to promote the propositions, which are intended to help balance California's books. The alcohol and tobacco industries have donated $875,000.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who has won praise from consumer groups for taking on credit card providers over predatory lending practices, has collected thousands of dollars in donations from people affiliated with the so-called payday loan industry. The lawmaker raised more than $44,000 from pawnshop owners and other businesses that provide high-interest loans, often to people with bad credit ratings, according to campaign finance reports. The amount, a fraction of the $1.

President-elect Barack Obama says he does not want to use special interest money to pay for inaugural events, but the lobbyists are coming anyway. The calendar is chock-full of parties and receptions, brunches and breakfasts -- not to mention lunches, dinners and prayer services. Many, and perhaps most, are designed to bring those who need influence into contact with those who wield it.

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) told an abortion-rights group to stop raising money for political flyers boosting his candidacy after the ads were questioned as a possible special-interest donation, his campaign manager said Tuesday.

Dozens of narrowly drawn special-interest bills are moving quietly through the Legislature, swept along in a final crush of measures as lawmakers rush to end their 1989 session by midnight Friday. Among these largely unheralded bills--which have a way of slipping through with little debate or opposition--is one pushed by car dealers that would raise the fees they can charge customers for processing documents by $10 per vehicle.

For years, progressive groups and their causes have been in the political wilderness. Now, with Barack Obama preparing to take the White House and Democrats tightening their hold on Congress, the party's liberal constituencies can see their way to a promised land. Their vision includes federal laws banning job discrimination against gays; expanded hate-crime laws; public land protections from logging and oil drilling; and easier union organizing of workers.

Three years ago, campaign finance experts watched with alarm as one-fifth of the money raised on behalf of Los Angeles mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa came from "independent expenditures," special interests with no limits on how much they could collect and spend. The numbers were even more jaw-dropping for Villaraigosa's opponent, then-Mayor James K. Hahn. Although he lost his bid for a second term, Hahn saw one-third of his financial backing, or $2 million, come from such groups.