The California Fair Political Practices Commission issued its required upward adjustment of the California state election contribution limits this week.  A detailed chart of the new limits is attached.  As a result of low inflation, candidates for State Assembly and State Senate after 1/1/11 can still receive $3,900 per person in contributions, other statewide candidates can still receive $6,500 per person but Jerry Brown can now receive $26,000 towards his re-election race, raised just a hundred bucks from previous levels.

     Under existing law there is no limit to what a political party can give to a candidate for state office, however, the revised rules allow a person to give an extra $100, now, $32,500 to a party, over the previous limit, and still $200 to a so-called "small contributor" committee, and $6,500 for a PAC that contributes to state candidates.  (The unlimited support a partisan candidate can receive from a political party keeps them relevant even if Proposition 14 is upheld, which does not change that aspect of campaign finance.)  There is no limit to contributions to committees that do not support or oppose state candidates and of course "independent expenditures" may be unlimited.

     In other news, my wife Janice and I had dinner with UCLA Law Professor Dan Lowenstein at Morton’s in Santa Ana last night, who was the very first Chairman of the FPPC, appointed by Jerry Brown in the 1970s, and we spent more time talking about his new institute of western civilization at UCLA, Shakespeare plays and Verdi operas, than FPPC rules.   In addition, I thought you would appreciate a recent picture of my German Shepherd, Ibo vom Steigerhof, BH, who remains unimpressed by any of it.

Ibo Lacy

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 18th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.