Carole, I Will Almost Miss You When You're Gone

Constant Readers,

I read this morning about how Carole Midgen just reported having raised more money for the California State Senate District 3 race than her opponents Mark Leno and Joe Nation.

Good grief! Could this be true? Could she actually be a contender despite the recent record-breaking $350k fine from the California Fair Political Practices Commission (CFPPC)?

Well, never fear Constant Readers, your old pal Melissa just learned that Midgen is being sued by the CFPPC for $9 million in damages for her "consistent and deliberate failure to follow California's campaign laws." As Brian Devine at Calitics points out in his excellent article on this subject, Migden has been found guilty of 132 election finance violations since 2002; 89 of those violations are from a CFPPC decision dated March 17.

In the interest of accuracy, what the CFPPC is bringing is a counterclaim against Migden's lawsuit against the CFPPC in which she is seeking to have California Government Code section 89519 declared unconstitutional (the fact the Midgen voted to enact section 89519 notwithstanding).  Migden is shamelessly trying to get the law declared unconstitutional because, frankly, she broke it. She failed to put the $900k from her "Committee to Re-Elect Assemblywoman Carole Migden" account into her "Friends of Carole Migden" account before she left the Assembly in 2002. As Brian summarized in his article:

"if you're going to run for another office, you need to transfer your campaign funds to a new account before you leave your current office.  If you do not, the funds are designated 'surplus campaign funds' and you cannot use them for a future campaign.  Period."

Yet, that's exactly what she did. A year and a half after leaving office. And she lied her ass off about it. And that's basically why she is being sued by the CFPPC for $9 million.

Matier and Ross recently quoted Migden as saying, "People don't really care about things like this [election law violations] - they care about the work you do." The fact that she separates "work" from her duties as an elected official is cause for concern that she doesn't understand that what she did was wrong and that these unlawful practices will continue.

And I care, dammit.   

--Melissa 

Comments

[Jamie]

Good to know we're not going to allow our reputation as a litigious state to slide away ....