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A majority of Stanton officials last week decided to get rid of an ordinance before it went into effect that would have been the strongest campaign finance law in Orange County minutes after two new City Council members were sworn into office.
The ordinance would have limited individual contributions to a political candidate to $1,000, limit fundraising windows to 11 months before an election and require officials to recuse themselves from votes that impact a campaign donor for a year after receiving their contribution.
[Read: Stanton Moves to Have Tightest Campaign Finance Law in Orange County]
At Tuesday’s meeting, officials voted 3-2 to toss out the ordinance before it went into effect after Mayor David Shawver called on officials to reconsider the ordinance after the new council members took their seat at the dais for the first time.
Councilmembers Gary Taylor and Donald Torres were the dissenting votes.
Shawver – who earlier that night voted in support of the ordinance – argued that the ordinance was contrary to state law and would leave the city liable to lawsuits.
“We’re in the middle of a council transition, so at this time, it’s important that we look it over and scrutinize it,” he said at the Dec. 10 meeting. “It’s contradictory to state law, and also it opens this up to litigation. This city gets sued too much already.”
Taylor, who called for revisions to the law, questioned why Shawver supported it earlier in the night and pushed back on Shawver’s argument that it violated state law.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” he said at the meeting. “Mr. Mayor, you’re not taking the interests of the city into consideration. You’re taking your own political ambitions and the fundraising that you’ve collected from this city over the years.”
Torres said the regulations proposed in the ordinance were intended to keep special interests out of local elections in Stanton.
“We don’t need big interest money in our elections, and the truth is that these special interests honestly dictate the outcome,” he said at the Dec. 10 meeting.
“I want our residents, our neighbors, to go ahead and be able to run for council, not just have two politicians every time running. I want normal, regular people to be part of this government.”
Newly elected Councilman John Warren, who is replacing his mother Carol Warren on the council, praised the intentions of the ordinance, but said the city should evaluate the campaign finance laws of neighboring cities.
He also said that while he was supportive of some of the reforms, the process to adopt the ordinance was rushed without much discussion.
“What ended up happening is an entire slate of reforms was adopted in one go,” Warren said.
“I want to be able to bring this back, be able to discuss it, where we can discuss each item, the transparency aspects, the campaign contribution limits, the other outside influences.”
His mother, Carol Warren, was the only council member who voted against the ordinance earlier in the night.
Taylor pushed back on Warren arguing the ordinance was not long and that he first brought forth a request for a campaign finance ordinance over a year ago.
Tuesday’s decision came after two thirds of Stanton voters approved a measure that will implement two four-year lifetime term limits on serving as mayor.
Shawver – the current mayor – has been on the city council for decades.
What Would Have The Ordinance Done?
Had the ordinance gone into effect, it would have limited individual contributions to political candidates to $1,000 and limit fundraising windows to 11 months before the election.
The ordinance would have also mandated officials to recuse themselves from votes that affect a campaign donor, like contracts or developments for 12 months after receiving the donation and publicly announce the contribution ahead of the vote – regardless of how small the contribution was.
Current state laws limit individual campaign contributions to $5,500 and require an official to recuse themself from a vote impacting a donor who contributed $250 or more to their campaigns in a 12-month period.
The contribution limit would not apply to independent expenditures – a limitation on which officials in couple cities have publicly worried would spark lawsuits on First Amendment grounds following the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling Citizens United case in 2010.
Stanton officials amended a previous version of the ordinance to indicate that the contribution limit would not apply to independent expenditures to avoid lawsuits.
At that meeting on Nov. 26, David Burke – a Cypress City Councilman and founder of Citizens Take Action who helped craft the ordinance – said all the aspects of the ordinance have been implemented in other cities.
“I wanted to assure you that all the significant provisions, to the best of my knowledge, in the ordinance have been enacted by other cities elsewhere. There’s nothing that I’m aware of that would break new legal ground,” he said at the Nov. 26 meeting.
His group grades OC cities on how strong their campaign contribution laws are and how transparent they are on campaign finance.
In 2022, Citizens Take Action gave Stanton a failing grade when it came to campaign finance laws.
Burke also said the ordinance – now canned – would have made Stanton the highest scoring city in all of Orange County when it came to campaign finance.
How Much Money Do Stanton Politicians Fundraise Per Election?
The Dec. 10 debate also sparked a debate on how much money politicians should raise during an election in a city that is home to roughly 40,000 residents.
At the meeting, Councilman Taylor said Mayor Shawver has fundraised off a lot of people who have business before the city.
“The last election, you raised $60,000 in a small city like this, and he ran unopposed. That’s just morally wrong. It’s not illegal,” Taylor said last Tuesday. “This wasn’t about legal or illegal. It was about ethics.”
In 2022, Shawver raised over $71,000 for his mayoral reelection campaign in a race that he ran unopposed, according to city campaign finance disclosure forms.
Shawver defended his fundraising efforts.
“The reason I raised $60,000 is because I was running for Mayor citywide. All of that money was raised before I didn’t have an opponent,” he said. “You can’t wait to the last moment to raise the money. $60,000 does not go a long way when you run for mayor for an entire city.”
He also shot back at Taylor and pointed to the fundraising efforts of Councilman Torres – who supported the campaign finance reforms.
“Now you’ve been led down the primrose path by that gentleman sitting next to you, Mr. Torres and the Democratic Party up and down the state of California raised $29,000 for his reelection,” Shawver said. “I did what was legal. I did exactly what’s under the law.”
“What are you accusing me of?” Torres responded.
“Excuse me I’m talking,” Shawver said before ending discussion on the issue and calling for a vote.
Torres raised around $29,000 in 2022 for his election campaign and received close to $4,000 from the Democratic Party of OC in independent expenditures to support his campaign for that election, according to city campaign finance disclosure forms.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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