Candidates facing new money rules

Sacramento Bee ^ | 1/22/6 | Gary Delsohn

[SmithL]

The three known candidates for governor are all out trolling for millions of dollars in campaign funds, but no big, six-figure checks will be flowing into their accounts.

Not unless the checks are written by the candidates themselves.

For the first time in a California gubernatorial election, there are limits on how much individual donors can contribute to a campaign. Under Proposition 34, which took effect for statewide offices after the 2002 election, individual contributions to a candidate for governor are capped at $22,300.

Garry South, a longtime Democratic campaign strategist now advising state Controller Steve Westly's gubernatorial campaign, said he's convinced the limits mean only a candidate with plenty of his own money can win.

"I don't believe that - given those limits - a candidate for governor can raise enough to run successfully," he said.

Like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the other announced candidate, Democratic state Treasurer Phil Angelides, Westly has no trouble writing checks for his own campaign. The onetime executive at eBay, the Internet auction site, announced last week that he had $22 million in his campaign account, with $20 million of it coming from his own pocket.

Angelides, who made millions as a Sacramento developer before running for office, has put his own money into past campaigns and may do so again this year. But he and his staff boast that, unlike Westly, Angelides has thousands of individual contributors.

"Under Prop. 34, serious candidates for governor in California need to have one of two things," said Dan Newman, an Angelides campaign spokesman. "Tens of millions of dollars of their own money or tens of thousands of their own supporters."

[FOG724]

I have never been a proponent of contribution limits. Only the rich can run. I would rather just see discloser.