A third home that Richardson borrowed heavily to move into in Sacramento was sold at auction earlier this month -- at a $150,000 loss to the bank that issued her the $535,000 loan. ...
Even as that was happening, ethics watchdogs were crying foul over Richardson's personal finances and questioning how she was able to lend her campaign to Congress $77,500 in the midst of multiple home loan defaults. ...
Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports show that Richardson loaned her campaign a total of $77,500 -- in three installments -- between June and July of 2007.
Richardson's year-end FEC filing showed that her campaign still had $331,000 worth of debt but $116,000 cash-on-hand. ...
Meredith McGehee, policy director for the Campaign Legal Center, said it would be reasonable for the FEC to look into the timing of the loan against the timeline of Richardson's home loan defaults.
"In situations like this it's very important for whoever loaned her the money to demonstrate that they treated her equitably, not favorably," McGehee said. "Otherwise, you're getting into a situation of a corporate underwriting of a campaign."
It was pretty clear last year, when Richardson ran a divisive, racially-toned campaign to win the Congressional seat against State Senator Jenny Oropeza, based in part on saying how this was "our" seat (referring to African-Americans), that she was potentially bad news. This confirms it. I won't defend her because these types of financial improprieties are unaceeptable. Getting behind on one loan because it's a fact of life that you need to practically go broke to win a political campaign is one thing. But this to me looks like a series of efforts to possibly use borrowed money and plow it into political activities. And that's wrong. I don't think she's in danger of losing her primary next week, but she should be.
