Probe Asked of Wilson’s Fund Reports

SACRAMENTO — An advocacy group for political reform filed a formal complaint Thursday requesting an investigation of reporting irregularities uncovered in a state audit of Gov. Pete Wilson’s 1989 and 1990 campaign records.

The nonpartisan organization California Common Cause asked the Fair Political Practices Commission to investigative auditors’ findings that the Wilson campaign failed to properly record the dates it received $731,116 in contributions, to disclose the occupations or employers of approximately 44% of its contributors and to fully itemize $7.1 million in television expenditures.

Common Cause officials said the Republican governor’s campaign appeared to have violated at least six of the disclosure requirements of the state’s Political Reform Act, a post-Watergate law that requires detailed reporting of political contributions and expenditures.

The reporting lapses were outlined in an Aug. 31 Franchise Tax Board audit of financial reports from Wilson’s $24-million gubernatorial campaign. Some of the Franchise Tax Board findings were similar to those made in an earlier audit of the campaign finances of Wilson’s Democratic opponent, Dianne Feinstein, in the 1990 general election.

However, Wilson campaign director George Gorton said a close examination of the audit findings for the Wilson campaign would show the reporting errors to be minor. “We spent $19,000 a month on accountants and attorneys. I would bet you right now that everyone will eventually conclude Pete Wilson’s reports were the cleanest and the best of any filed in 1990,” he said.

For example, even though the campaign provided stamped reply envelopes and made follow-up phone calls, Gorton said, many contributors simply refused to provide employer information for public disclosure. Nor, he said, could it accurately disclose the amount of each television buy before the ads were aired because the figures were in flux until the last minute.

He accused Common Cause of raising a tempest over the Wilson reports in order to minimize the findings in the Feinstein audit. “They’ve (Common Cause) been taken over by a bunch of partisan Democrats,” he said.

Ruth Holton, acting executive director of Common Cause, said that, on the contrary, the formal complaint was intended to ensure that the FPPC was not partisan and treated the Wilson campaign errors with the same thoroughness as Feinstein’s. One day after the public release of the Feinstein audit, the FPPC took the rare action of filing a civil lawsuit, accusing her campaign of misreporting more than $8 million in donations and expenditures. FPPC Chairman Ben Davidian, a Wilson appointee, called it the largest case of improper campaign reporting in the agency’s history.

“It is clear in looking at the (Wilson) violations that in many cases they replicate the Feinstein charges,” Holton said. The Wilson campaign, for example, was criticized for failing to itemize $7.1 million in expenditures; a similar finding against Feinstein’s campaign involved $3.6 million in expenditures. Feinstein’s campaign was accused of failing to report $90,000 in late contributions in a timely manner; the same finding against Wilson’s campaign involved $204,958 in late contributions. Both campaigns were scolded by auditors for failing to notify big contributors that they were required to file separate disclosures.

The Franchise Tax Board auditors indicated, however, that the reporting errors uncovered in the Feinstein audit were more numerous and serious than those found in the Wilson audit. Despite the irregularities found in its reports, they noted that the Wilson campaign had “substantially complied” with state law while Feinstein’s campaign had “not substantially complied” with reporting requirements. Both campaigns later corrected many of the errors.

The major difference in the two findings involved Feinstein’s failure to disclose that her husband, Richard Blum, was the co-signer on loans totaling $2.9 million.

Even so, Kim Alexander, a Common Cause policy analyst, said the errors in Wilson’s reports should not be ignored because they prevented the public from having access to important financial information during a critical time in the campaign. By its omission of the occupations and employers of so many contributors, she said, the Wilson campaign made it impossible to trace all of the interests that backed his campaign. A main purpose of campaign disclosure, she said, is to let voters know the affiliations of people who are financing a candidate.

Alexander said it was disappointing that both gubernatorial campaigns had so many campaign reporting errors. “If anyone should set an example,” she said, “it should be them.”

FPPC spokesman Carol Thorp said attorneys for the agency are evaluating the Wilson audit and “deciding what to do.” She said that in Feinstein’s case the FPPC was able to file a lawsuit immediately because it had already completed an investigation stemming from an earlier complaint. She said there were no formal complaints against the Wilson campaign until one was filed by Common Cause on Thursday.