Or at least it seems to be hovering in strange places in Carole Migden's campaign. Today, an FPPC Complaint was filed against Senator Migden, based on four alleged violations (description over the flip and at Indybay. You should read a more detailed description of all the charges, but the one that troubled me the most is an issue of shabby accounting. Senator Migden has failed to account for over $380,000 of expenditures in her various campaigns. Yikes, that's more floating petty cash than JoeMentum used to pay his "volunteers" in Connecticut.
And of course, there's the other story floating around which is not accounted for in this filing. I am, of course, talking about the billboards. Now that Matier and Ross have ditched the City for a few weeks, it appears that the matter will be left to Tim Redmond of the Bay Guardian. Of course, I'm pretty sure I'd take Tim over M&R pretty much any day. So, follow me over the flip for more from Tim over at the SFBG-Blog:
Lawyers hired by the state Senate campaign of Assembly member Mark Leno have concluded that those big, colorful billboards promoting Carole Migden all over town are in fact an illegal campaign contribution from Clear Channel Corp. That was based in part on my blog of a few days ago, quoting Migden as saying that Clear Channel paid for the billboards but that her campaign had paid for the printing. Check out the memo here (PDF).
But that's not the most fishy thing that Tim uncovered, because when he asked Migden's campaign manager, the answer changed. So, somebody, either the Senator or her staff, is missing something. Either way, there appears to be some sort of coordination that doesn't smell right.
Here are those alleged FPPC violations:
Violation #1 (illegal transfer of $1 million in surplus campaign funds)
State Senator Carole Migden on June 25, 2003 illegally transferred almost $1 million in surplus funds from her RE-ELECT ASSEMBLY WOMAN CAROLE MIGDEN campaign account (I.D. #962662) into her 2004 Senate Friends of Carole Migden account (I.D. #1231831).
The California Political Reform Act prohibits an officeholder from transferring surplus campaign funds to a future election account.
The $977,340.28 in funds officially became surplus on December 2, 2002 when Senator Carole Migden left her Assembly seat after being elected to the state Board of Equalization.
Violation #2 (illegal spending of $250,000 in surplus campaign funds)
State Senator Carole Migden illegally spent $250,000 in surplus campaign funds from her 2004 Senate Friends of Carole Midgen campaign account (I.D. #1231831).
Violation #3 (failure to itemize $400,000 in credit card campaign expenses)
Senator Carole Migden violated California campaign finance law by failing to itemize almost $400,000 in political campaign expenses between the years 2000-2006.
The California Political Reform Act requires that all campaign disbursements over $100 must be itemized in reports with the name, address and purpose of the disbursement.
Four separate campaign committees controlled by Senator Carole Migden during the period from 2000-2006 failed to provide any itemization of credit card payments made by those committees.
The total amount of the un-itemized payments was $381,404.65, an amount representing 25% of all expenditures from the four candidate committees Senator Carole Migden controlled.
Violation #4 (illegal maintenance of political committee)
Senator Carole Migden illegally maintains a political committee — CAROLE MIGDEN LEADERSHIP COMMITTEE, (ID# 1231896) — from her 2001 campaign for a seat on the state Board of Equalization.
Fair Political Practices Commission regulations require that a candidate-controlled committee be terminated no later than 24 months after the candidate leaves office. Senator Carole Migden resigned her seat on the Board of Equalization in December 2004.
