The Downside of Campaign Reform: Fewer Candidates : The growing number of restrictions have made it harder to run for office. So the public ends up with fewer choices on the ticket and less reason to vote.

Ochlophopia: An abnormal fear of crowds.

Agoraphobia: An abnormal fear of open places.

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If you suffer from the first, feel free to go to your polling place June 6. If you suffer from the second, perhaps you should stay home.

Experts agree that the Los Angeles city election will have a dismal turnout, probably fewer than 10% of registered voters. That means about 5% of the eligible voters will cast ballots. The turnout will not be much better in the two City Council districts with hotly contested runoffs.

Only one of those council contests involves the San Fernando Valley. For the remainder of Valley voters, a college district seat, a police bond issue and a technical charter amendment affecting police discipline will be the only draws to the polls. Even the bond issue may not draw significant numbers of Valley voters. About $40 million would be allocated to Valley facilities. That’s about 23% of the total bond money--way short of the amount that 40% of the city’s population should dictate.

Some of this money would go for parking structures and child-care facilities at Valley stations, but none for station improvements at the Devonshire, Foothill or North Hollywood divisions--the majority of the Valley’s police facilities. So the only draw this bond issue is likely to get from Valley voters will be to cast a no vote. A two-thirds yes vote is required for passage.

Much of what we see in recent election campaigns is a direct result of various “reform” efforts. Campaign reform groups seem to want to take the politics out of politics. The end result makes campaigns more difficult for the average citizen to wage and increases the influence of political professionals.

Limiting contributions from others has led us to an ever-increasing number of wealthy candidates who finance their own campaigns. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld unlimited financing by candidates themselves, on the theory that limiting it would violate their First Amendment rights. The theory also holds that you can’t corrupt yourself.

Here then is Clarke’s Campaign Reform Paradox:

Increasing the difficulty of running for office decreases the number of candidates. With fewer candidates to choose from, fewer people will find someone to vote for, and more will stay home. Therefore, campaign reform laws often achieve the opposite of their desired effect, which is to bring more people into the process.

Los Angeles’ so-called campaign reform laws make it harder to run. Before their enactment, a candidate could ask a next-door neighbor to be the campaign treasurer and report contributions and expenditures. After an hour’s reading, the average person could handle the task. Now, with taxpayer-financed matching funds, spending limits and big penalties for making mistakes, a candidate is foolish not to hire a CPA, if not a lawyer, for campaign treasurer.

Candidates for the U.S. Senate, Congress or the Legislature need fewer than 50 valid signatures to quality for the ballot. Candidates for L.A. city offices need at least 500 and as many as 1,000, and the city often challenges them on small technicalities. Just ask Leah D’Agostino, who failed to make the 5th District council ballot because too few of her signatures qualified.

Primarily responsible for low voter interest, I think, is the widespread belief that voting won’t make a difference in the way we are governed. With grass-roots candidates frozen out and only professional candidates left, you can expect only dedicated voters to vote.

For practical purposes, only 3% of the adult population in Los Angeles will control the city’s course of events as a result of the June election. Who benefits from this--incumbents, challengers, conservatives, liberals? The answer is all of the above, depending on circumstances.

Michael Feuer did well in the Valley portion of the City Council’s 5th District in the primary election. But the overall turnout was low. Does he now concentrate on getting more Valley voters out in June? Maybe not. Those other voters might be Barbara Yaroslavsky’s.

She now has the support of the president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. and two Valley-based primary challengers. Will that change the equation? Does Feuer identify his primary voters and encourage them and forget the rest? Maybe and maybe not.

All of this highlights the fact that campaign professionals are part artist and part scientist. The hard and fast rule of campaign management is that, outside of the legalities, there are very few hard and fast rules.

So if you’re running for office, do you want a high or low voter turnout? It depends on which voters are actually voting. You must identify and encourage voters who are likely to support you to vote, while not encouraging those who oppose you. It’s a technique as old as the republic.

Why did many towns close saloons on election day in the early years of our nation? So impaired voters wouldn’t be unduly swayed. Even today, it’s still illegal to induce people to vote in any election in which there’s a federal candidate, even if the inducement is not on behalf of the federal candidate.

Put all the restrictions you like on who can run for office and how they can campaign. There will always be someone who will learn to use the rules to his or her advantage. After all, it’s the American way.