Campaign-Spending Suit Called Cheap Assault : Politics: Mayor says limits were ‘put in place to prevent scandal and influence peddling,’ which suit ‘seeks to circumvent.’

Alarmed by what she called “a cheap political assault on City Hall” by special interests, San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor on Thursday harshly criticized a campaign-spending lawsuit that she argued could taint the November race to elect her successor.

The suit, filed by a supporter of mayoral candidate Susan Golding, seeks to overturn a legal opinion by City Atty. John Witt that would prevent Golding backers who already have given the maximum $250 contribution to her campaign from also donating to independent efforts to defeat her opponent, Peter Navarro.

“The limits were put in place to prevent scandal and influence peddling,” O’Connor said in a memo to Witt on Thursday. “This lawsuit seeks to circumvent those safeguards, erode the public’s confidence in government and send the city’s election process into an abyss of skepticism and deceit.”

At a downtown news conference Thursday, Navarro echoed the mayor’s sentiments, terming the lawsuit, filed in San Diego Superior Court on behalf of local lawyer David Dick, “a blatant attempt by developers to try to buy City Hall.” A hearing on the suit, which, if successful, theoretically could also benefit Navarro by allowing his supporters to back independent efforts against Golding, is scheduled for today.

Dick, a partner in Gray, Cary, Ames & Frye, the city’s largest law firm, is represented by several of his firm’s attorneys, some of whom also handled an earlier lawsuit that blocked a Navarro-backed managed-growth initiative from being placed on the June ballot.

Although Navarro suggestively hinted that Golding’s campaign and one of her prominent supporters, businessman Robert Lichter, might have been involved in a “back room deal” to file the lawsuit, each of the principals denied that veiled accusation.

“I don’t know Bob Lichter, and I haven’t consulted with him or any Golding campaign people,” Dick said. Similarly, Golding’s campaign manager, Dan McAllister, said that Golding’s staff was unaware of the lawsuit until contacted by reporters.

“We’ve neither asked for nor encouraged independent campaigns,” McAllister said. “In fact, when anyone has even suggested that, we’ve been pretty adamant in discouraging it. We’d prefer that nothing go on outside our own campaign committee.”

But Dick said that he and others who have donated to Golding’s campaign treasury would also like to contribute to an independent committee seeking to defeat Navarro.

Under city election laws, individuals may contribute a maximum $250 per election to candidates. In June, Witt’s office issued a written legal opinion holding that that provision also prevents individuals from donating additional money to independent committees benefiting the same candidate by working against an opponent.

Dick, however, contends in the suit that Witt’s interpretation goes beyond the letter of the campaign law, saying that the city attorney “essentially read something into the ordinance that is not there.”

“We don’t think this issue is even addressed in the ordinance,” Dick said. “We’re not challenging the $250 limit in the ordinance as it is written--only the city attorney’s interpretation of how it applies to independent committees.”

In his written opinion, Witt treats contributions to independent committees opposing one candidate as being tantamount to donations to a rival. Thus, under that interpretation, an individual who gave $250 to one candidate and another $250 to a committee opposing the rival essentially would have given $500 to the favored candidate.

“This is nothing but a way of getting around the law,” Navarro charged. “This would leave the mayor’s office vulnerable to going to the highest bidder. . . . If they can do this, God help this city.”

But Dick argues that Witt’s interpretation actually works counter to its expressed goal by doing nothing to prevent wealthy individuals from pouring their money into independent campaigns while limiting persons who wish to pool their resources in a similar effort.

Navarro also suggested that the lawsuit’s timing was linked to a recent San Diego Union-Tribune poll showing him with a 41%-29% lead over Golding, saying that she and “her developer friends . . . are running scared.”